


The Skull Beneath the Skin

by fredbassett



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:31:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Stephen attend a conference and things take a particularly interesting turn during a field trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stephen watched as Nick Cutter shoved a handful of loose papers into the front pocket of his rucksack and then looked around vaguely at the ever-present mess in his office.

“Ready?” Stephen asked, wondering if Nick was ever going to take the hint. He stared pointedly at his watch. “If we can hit the motorway before the traffic builds up there’s a chance we can meet some of the others for a drink this evening.”

“Aye,” muttered Nick, still staring owlishly at the chaos and showing no sign of moving towards the door.

With an amused sigh, Stephen declared, “Clean underpants times four – check. Spare socks – check. Two shirts, two pairs of trousers – check. Walking boots – check. Anorak – already in the Hilux. Wash-bag – check. Sweater – packed it myself, bottom of rucksack. Conference paper notes – just stuffed in rucksack, watched you do it. Memory stick with the photos – in my pocket, you’ll only lose it. Come on, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”

Nick’s vague look suddenly became focussed. He dived across to his over-sized desk where heaps of books, papers and fossils were threatening to make a bid for freedom in the direction of the floor, pulled open a drawer and brandished a half bottle of his favourite Scotch. “Can’t stand paying hotel prices.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Cutter, if we get stuck on the bloody M4 and I miss out on a beer in the Highbury Vaults, you’re sleeping on the floor.”

His lover slipped the whisky into yet another pocket in his rucksack, swung the bulging and over-laden object over his shoulder and gestured theatrically towards the door. Stephen followed, locking the door behind them, and the two men made their way to the car park of the Central Metropolitan University, dodging two of Nick’s most annoying students en route, slung their bags into the Hilux and set off.

Barring a herd of diplodocus laying waste to Hyde Park, or something equally dramatic, they were theoretically having a weekend off to attend a conference at Bristol University, and – if all went according to plan – Nick was even intending to give a paper. It was the first time they’d gone to anything like this since their work on the anomaly project had started and, although a generous research grant for Nick’s department, wangled by Lester from some slush fund or other, had been enough to sweeten their frequent – unscheduled – absences, keeping up at least the semblance of academic credibility was still a necessity.

The traffic on the M4 was lighter than Stephen had expected on a Friday afternoon and they made good time. Bristol city centre was the usual nightmare of over-sized roundabouts, new shopping centres and too many cars, but they still made it to the small hotel in Clifton in good time. Stephen had booked the hotel mainly because it was one of the few in the area with parking facilities, but it was no more than a 20- minute walk from the pub and only ten minutes from where they needed to be the following day, which would no doubt be a bonus after a night spent drinking with a bunch of academics.

Their room was pleasant and airy, with an impressive view of the upside down funnel roof of Bristol’s Catholic Cathedral. The double bed was made up with a duvet, as Stephen had specified. Nick and blankets simply didn’t mix. They ended up tangled around his legs or unceremoniously dumped on the floor, even in the depths of winter, so Stephen had long since learned to be quite precise in his requirements when booking accommodation. The hotel owner, a cheerful man in his mid-50s who clearly had no objection to two men sharing a double bed, had left them a plentiful supply of tea, coffee and milk, again as per specification. Even when he was camping, Nick needed at least two cups of strong coffee before he was anything even remotely resembling human in the morning. Stephen certainly wouldn’t inflict him on any other hotel guests at breakfast unless he’d been suitably caffeinated in advance.

The ensuite bathroom was surprisingly spacious, and the large shower cubicle held distinct possibilities that Stephen fully intended to explore further, but for now they contented themselves with simply dumping their bags, having a quick wash to freshen up and then heading out in the direction of the main university complex.

Clifton was still thronged with students, even though it was now nearly 7pm. They made their way up University Road, near the imposing neo-Gothic tower of the Wills Memorial Building, which would be playing host to their conference over the weekend, and along the side of the university’s new Arts and Social Sciences library, heading for the pub where they knew they’d find a goodly proportion of their colleagues already ensconced.

The Highbury Vaults was the sort of old, dark-roomed pub that the area around the CMU sadly lacked. With the advent of the smoking ban the atmosphere was cleaner than he remembered from their last visit but, apart from that, nothing appeared to have changed. Stephen fluttered his eyelashes at the girl behind the bar to good effect, much to the irritation of a group of what looked, and sounded, like archaeology post-grads and lecturers, while Nick went in search of the rest of their group.

Armed with two pints of Courage Directors and a couple of bags of peanuts, Stephen made his way to the back of the pub and found Nick sitting at a table in the garden with a group of people who could have given the archaeologists a run for their money when it came to a lack of sartorial elegance. Stephen slid into a small space on a bench, sandwiched between Nick and a large, cheerful woman in early middle-age, wearing a brightly patterned sweater at least four sizes too large for her, who was holding forth on the subject of the illegal trade in fossils.

“… and the bastard ended up with nowt but a sodding caution,” she said in disgust. “You can still see where the bugger hacked out the entire slab. It’s a miracle any of them are left at the rate stuff’s getting nicked.”

“Bendrick Rock?” Stephen said, sliding one of the packets of peanuts over to Nick.

The woman nodded. It was the site they’d be visiting on Sunday afternoon for a field trip, an exposed section of Triassic rocks on the South Wales coast with some of the best dinosaur footprints in the British Isles. She stuck her hand out to Stephen. “Rosie Gleeson from Cardiff.”

Stephen’s hand was thoroughly shaken and he managed to suppress a wince. “Stephen Hart, CMU.”

“Cutter’s assistant?” She smiled widely. “I knew the old bastard at Edinburgh. I was a post grad when he first came up. He was in a couple of my seminar groups. He was a brainy sod. Always knew he’d make professor before me.”

“Only by two years,” Cutter laughed. “Don’t listen to a word the bloody woman says, Stephen. Our Rosie lies like a cheap carpet.”

“And I eat pretty boys for breakfast,” Professor Gleeson added, with a theatrical leer. “As long as they’re over the age of consent.”

“By which she means 30, so you’re in deep shit, Hart,” commented Frank Taylor, an old antagonist of Nick’s for as long as Stephen could remember. Taylor had held a chair in Palaeontology at Imperial College, London until he’d taken early retirement four years ago, at the age of 50, after inheriting a very large fortune and a mansion in the countryside. Taylor was rich enough to indulge his passion for old bones and was said to be amassing a very impressive personal collection.

Stephen grinned, but before he could frame a suitable reply, Nick surprised him by sliding an arm around Stephen’s waist and giving him a light hug.

“He’s taken,” Nick said casually.

Rosie Gleeson’s eyes widened in surprised delight. “Bloody hell, Cutter, don’t tell me you’ve finally got over that bitch of a wife of yours?”

To Stephen’s amazement, all Nick did was smile and nod. Their relationship had been an open secret in the CMU for the last couple of years, but this was the first time Nick had been so obvious – and so relaxed – about it in front of a gathering of his peers. Stephen leaned into Cutter’s embrace and enjoyed the looks that several people were casting, not very covertly, in their direction. Rosie Gleeson was grinning like a cat that had gorged on cream, several of the other women and at least two of the men were smiling with open approval, and Frank Taylor was wearing an expression that Stephen had last seen behind glass in an aquarium.

“If the wind changes you’ll stick like that,” Rosie told Taylor, standing up and nearly tipping Stephen and Nick off the bench. “I think that news merits another drink. Sup up, boys, this one’s on me.”

With a grin that matched his old friend’s, Nick downed the remainder of his pint in two long swallows and pushed his glass towards Rosie.

The remainder of the evening was spent in the sort of gossip that characterised every group of academics the world over. Absent colleagues and their work were dissected like lab specimens, departmental budgets were bemoaned, vice-chancellors were reviled and students were universally despaired of. At 10.30pm, after enough beer to refloat the S.S. Great Britain, and enough peanuts to feed the inhabitants of Bristol Zoo, someone suggested going for a curry, which naturally seemed like a good idea at that stage, so it was after midnight when Stephen and Nick finally made their way back to their hotel.

Their room wasn’t overlooked at the front, so Stephen left the curtains open, allowing the warm glow of the streetlamps to permeate the bedroom. He kicked his trainers off, stripped off his long-sleeved tee-shirt and shimmied out of his jeans, underwear and socks in one movement.

“Nice,” commented Nick from the bathroom doorway, around a mouthful of toothpaste.

Stephen grinned at him. “You’re a lecherous old sod, Cutter.”

“Not so much of the old,” Nick complained brandishing a toothbrush at him. “I’m younger than Rosie Gleeson and half of those buggers in the pub, including Frank Bloody Taylor. Speaking of Taylor, someone told me that his daughter’s now working as his research assistant. She’s probably the only person who could manage to put up with him.”

“He doesn’t improve, does he? I liked Rosie, though. How come I haven’t met her before?”

“She spends as much time as she can in the States and we haven’t been over to Wales when she’s been in the country. She’s been digging in the Badlands for the past 20 years. Rosie’s a genius at two things: picking up men in bars and getting funding for digs.”

“Maybe the two are connected?”

Nick laughed, and headed back to the bathroom sink to dispose of a mouthful of toothpaste. He emerged a moment later and pulled Stephen into a mint-flavoured kiss, running his hands down Stephen’s back and cupping his arse.

“What brought on tonight’s revelation, Cutter?” Stephen murmured, tugging his friend’s shirt out of his jeans and starting to undo the buttons, while at the same time nuzzling at the day-old stubble on Nick’s neck.

“Wanted to watch the looks on their faces,” Nick admitted. “And I didn’t want to spoil a weekend off for either of us with ‘look but don’t touch’.” His hands parted the cheeks of Stephen’s arse and he ran his fingers lightly down the warm cleft, brushing teasingly over his hole. “Even the bloody dean has got over it, so why the hell should we play the ‘just good friends’ game with this lot?”

“No reason at all.” Stephen slipped Nick’s shirt off his shoulder and bent his head to flick a tongue over one of Nick’s nipples. His lover’s announcement had taken him by surprise, but it hadn’t been an unwelcome one. They’d been together in every sense of the word for nearly four years now, but they’d always kept their relationship low-key in public and Stephen had never pushed for anything more. The opportunity to be themselves in front of friends and colleagues was something new, and Stephen had savoured it that evening to the full. They’d held hands under the restaurant table like a couple of kids on a first date, sharing a casual touch here, a private smile there. All things other lovers took for granted, but which were new and exciting to them.

Nick brought his hands up and cupped Stephen’s face, and Stephen found himself staring down into the other man’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Nick murmured, kissing him tenderly on the lips.

“For what?” Stephen quirked an eyebrow, genuinely puzzled by the apology.

“For leaving it so long to acknowledge you in public. I’m sorry, Stephen, I really am.”

Stephen slipped his arms around Nick’s waist and drew him into an open-mouthed kiss, saying with lips and tongue all the things he found too difficult to put into words, while his hands made short work of Nick’s belt and the fastenings on his trousers.

They tumbled together onto the bed, mouths working more urgently now, hard cocks pressed together. Stephen shifted position slightly, getting a hand between them, wrapping his fingers around Nick’s cock and his own, jacking them slowly, slicking his fingers with their mingled pre-come. Nick groaned into his mouth, surrendering to Stephen’s ministrations, head thrown back onto the pillows, eyes closed. Stephen sucked lightly on his collarbone and nuzzled at the hollow of Nick’s throat then he leant back on one elbow and, with single-minded determination, concentrated on taking Nick to the brink and then holding him there. Nick’s eyes fluttered open and he smiled up at him, and Stephen was lost. His climax coiled inside him and then hit home with the speed and force of a striking snake. He gasped and covered Nick’s stomach with come. A moment later, Nick’s cock pulsed in his hand and more warm fluid coated his fingers, easing their passage.

Stephen sank onto his back, panting, as the last tremors of orgasm coursed through him. He was tugged into a warm, sticky embrace, and Nick’s mouth covered his, soft and gentle. He barely felt Nick cleaning him up with a warm cloth and, moments later, he slipped away into sleep, his head pillowed on Nick’s shoulder and one arm draped around his lover’s waist.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning had flown by. Fortunately for Stephen’s sanity, Nick’s paper had been scheduled for 11am, after an interesting discourse by Adam Fellowes from Leeds on insect-borne diseases as evidenced by some particularly fine new specimens preserved in Baltic amber. That had been followed by a paper on a new fossil trackway found in Le Veillon, in the Vendée region of France, by Dominique Joffrey from the University of Bordeaux. Rosie Gleeson chaired the morning session with good humour combined with a military efficiency that would have earned her admiring glances from Captain Ryan. It had been clear from the outset that no one would get the opportunity to overrun their allotted time with Rosie in charge.

Nick’s paper on the pace of evolutionary change in marginal Cretaceous habitats was well-received and, more to the point, didn’t breach the Official Secrets Act. After the question and answer session, Nick slid back into the seat next to Stephen, clearly relieved that his part in the proceedings was now over. Stephen slid his hand up his lover’s thigh and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Nick twined his fingers with Stephen’s and they listened while Alec Sharp, who held the Chair in Vertebrate Palaeontology at Bristol, read out a couple of last-minute changes to the day’s programme, then told everyone that tea and coffee was available outside the lecture theatre and the presentations would resume after a 30-minute break.

“I would have thought you’d have grown out of your performance anxiety by now, Cutter,” said Rosie Gleeson, sinking her teeth into a Danish pastry with evident relish and contriving to leer at Stephen at the same time, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

“He has,” Stephen said, with a smile, handing Nick a mug of coffee. “But he still gets nervous before giving a paper.”

Rosie laughed. “Can I keep him, Nicky? Pretty please. I’ll feed him and make sure he gets regular exercise.”

“Nicky?” Stephen paused in the middle of eating a particularly fine pain au chocolat and stared at his lover in astonishment.

Much to Stephen’s amusement, a faint blush started to creep up Nick’s cheeks. Shaving at the weekend was anathema to both men, but the dark-blond stubble did nothing to hide Nick’s discomfiture.

“Rosie Gleeson, if you don’t shut your mouth I’ll borrow a bone-saw off Alec and cut you into very small pieces.”

Rosie went up on tiptoes, planted a smacking kiss on Nick’s lips and, before he could retaliate, declared, “Must get another bun before that fat slob Frank Taylor grabs the last one. Bye, darling.”

“Nicky?” Stephen repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s what Rina Suvova used to call me when I was an undergrad on one of her digs in the Ukraine,” Nick admitted, taking refuge in his coffee.

“I’ll have to remember that,” murmured Stephen. “It’s cute.”

“I don’t do cute,” declared Nick, mock-outrage apparently succeeding in overcoming his embarrassment.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Stephen countered, leaving Nick to flip him the finger as Stephen slipped through the crowded reception area in search of another pastry.

“You’re good for him,” declared Rosie, under her breath, as she refilled Stephen’s mug with more coffee. “Haven’t seen the old bugger look this happy in years.” She looked up into Stephen’s eyes, her face serious for once. “Break his heart and you’ll have me to answer to.” She smiled at him brightly, but he knew she was serious.

“I’ve no intention of doing anything like that,” Stephen said quietly, but with feeling. It was impossible to take offence at the woman’s exhortation and he found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he was anxious for her goodwill.

Her smile slid into a grin. “Just don’t do a Helen and bugger off and leave him. Never did like the bloody woman. She could be a right bitch.”

“I was one of her students,” Stephen said quietly.

“Then you’ll know what I mean. Now get that coffee down you, lad, Sharp’s about to call us back in. Time to listen to Frankie-boy blathering about …” She glanced at a programme sellotaped to the wall behind the refreshments’ table, “Extreme cranial ontogeny in Upper Cretaceous dinosaurs. Bloody hell.” She rolled her eyes. “‘scuse me while I dash to the bog. I can’t stand Frankie at the best of times and on a full bladder I wouldn’t be answerable for my actions.”

Alec Sharp announced the start of the next session and Stephen did his best to disentangle Nick from a discussion with an earnest-looking 20-something from Southampton who was doing a PhD on the evolutionary dynasties of synapsids in the Permian.

“What was she on about?” Stephen asked as they slid in at the back of the room on the left, into an empty row of seats.

“I have absolutely no idea,” confessed Nick. “I’m not convinced she was even talking English. But I rather suspect she was hoping for an introduction to you.”

“You looked like you were about to disappear down her cleavage.”

“Aye, it reminded me of the Grand Canyon.”

Alec Sharp introduced Professor Frank Taylor, killed the lights, and went to sit at the front.

The seats in the lecture theatre were too cramped for Stephen’s 6’2” frame and he sat slightly sideways, his right ankle crossed over his left thigh. Nick looped his arm casually around Stephen’s leg, resting his elbow on Stephen’s groin. He appeared to be determined to take advantage of the fact that they were the only people in that particular row, with no one close enough to see what they were doing and an empty row in front of them.

Stephen grinned in the semi-darkness. He hadn’t made out in a lecture theatre since he’d been a randy undergraduate, but if Rosie Gleeson cottoned on to what they were doing neither of them would live it down.

“She’s on the other side of the room, halfway down,” Nick breathed in his ear, his stubble rasping against Stephen’s cheek. “Relax.”

“Triceratops and torosaurus,” intoned Frank Taylor at the front of the room, in a tone of voice that had almost certainly put several generations of students to sleep in his lectures. “Close relatives, or something more?”

A re-creation of the iconic dinosaur, beloved of B movie-makers and palaeontologists alike, came up on the screen, the three distinctive horns jutting out from a massive, frilled skull. It was followed immediately by an image of a torosaurus skull, the frill even more massive, perforated by rounded openings, with even longer brow horns than the triceratops.

The rubbing from Nick’s elbow was starting to make Stephen’s cock sit up and take notice. Thankful for the fact that he’d decided to pull on a pair of loose, multi-pocketed trousers that morning instead of jeans, he shifted in his seat again, and began to make plans for a hasty dash to the loos before Taylor’s talk ended. Nick was getting his own back for Stephen’s earlier teasing, while carefully fending off any of Stephen’s attempts to reciprocate.

“It’s hardly surprising that Marsh considered the creatures to be two separate species and it seems that everyone since has brought the same degree of blinkered thinking to the subject rather than actually examining the evidence.”

“Pompous idiot,” muttered Nick, his breath ghosting warmly over Stephen’s cheek. “Talking to us like we’re a bunch of bloody undergrads.” To emphasise his point he rubbed his elbow up and down Stephen’s rapidly-burgeoning erection.

Stephen closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on what Taylor was saying, in the hope of bringing his reactions under control. The last thing he needed with another two papers to sit through after this one was to end up coming in his pants. He wondered briefly what his chances were of manoeuvring a handkerchief down the front of his trousers and decided it was too much of a risk.

“The Hell Creek formation in Montana has yielded a rich array of triceratops skulls, but for torosaurus we have less than a quarter of that number. I have – so far –examined 29 triceratops skulls and nine torosaurus skulls. By counting the growth rings in the bones it can clearly be seen that the skulls come from animals of different ages. It’s just like counting tree rings,” Taylor declared, beaming out at his audience as though this method of determining ages was something new.

“And first prize for stating the bleeding obvious goes to…” said Nick quietly, continuing to drive Stephen to distraction with a well-placed, and disconcertingly over-active, elbow.

“But torosaurus fossils are considerably rarer that those of triceratops and, more interestingly, what no one appears to have remarked on before this study, is the fact that the only specimens we have are from adults.” Frank Taylor stared around the room, gauging audience reaction to his statement before continuing.

In the front row, Taylor’s daughter, a slim girl in her late-20s with mouse-brown hair pulled back into a loose pony-tail, was leaning forwards, listening intently, even though she was probably as well-versed in her father’s theories as he was. The rest of the audience was maintaining a polite interest, in spite of a delivery that was, at best, pedestrian and, at worst, as dull as ditch-water.

Nick chose that moment to up the ante, running his elbow all the way up the hard length of Stephen’s cock and nearly making him gasp aloud. Throwing propriety to the winds, Stephen burrowed a hand down the front of his trousers, settling his dick more comfortably in his pants, cursing Nick’s new-found interest in sexual experimentation in semi-public places. He pulled his hand out as quickly as he could, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in a sweetie jar and completely missed the next few minutes of Taylor’s presentation while he fought to keep his breathing under control.

A few moments later Nick’s movements slowed, much to Stephen’s relief, and he opened his eyes in time to see a series of images charting the development of the triceratops skulls from juveniles into adult skulls and then into… torosaurus.

“The oldest specimens of triceratops show a marked thinning of the bone at the point where the torosaurus has holes in its skull,” Taylor said triumphantly. “This strongly suggests that they are in the process of becoming fenestrated.”

Nick leaned forward suddenly, his elbow digging painfully into Stephen’s groin, all thought of teasing forgotten. The look of amusement on his face had been replaced by the sort of intent look that his assistant knew all too well.

For the remainder of the presentation, Taylor expounded his views on the supposed defensive function of the triceratops’ frill. In his not-so-humble opinion, the idea of the frill being used for defence was inconceivable. It had numerous large blood vessels running over the surface.

“I don’t imagine that holding up a thin bony shield that would gush blood if ruptured would be a very effective means of defence, do you?” Taylor challenged. “No. A far more likely explanation is that the headgear was a display to signal an individual’s maturity to other members of the species. Sexual dimorphism is another possibility, but it is one which, on the evidence, I consider to be less likely. So, to conclude, I believe we can now confidently abolish torosaurus as a species and reassign its specimens to triceratops.” He stepped back and inclined his head graciously to the audience, as though giving a small bow.

Thoughtful applause greeted his performance. Stephen could see various people leaning over to mutter a few words to colleagues, a low buzz running through the room while the next person stepped up to the lectern, shuffling papers and quickly being shown how to work the audio-visual controls by Alec Sharp.

Nick leaned back in his seat, all thoughts of testing Stephen’s composure clearly forgotten in his consideration of Taylor’s presentation. At the end of the next presentation, Nick was clearly still weighing the evidence in his mind, paying no attention whatsoever to a moderately well-thought out exposition of basal diapsid phylogeny by one of Alec Sharp’s PhD students and even less to a paper on the use of phylogenetic means to assess the quality of the rock and fossil records by Dr Peter Duquesne from Trinity College, Dublin.

When it came to the questions, Stephen half-expected Nick to challenge Taylor’s assertions, but instead it was left to other members of the audience to raise questions, leading Taylor to launch into a similar theory involving dracorex, stygimoloch and pachycepalosaurus. Alex Sharp managed to bring the session to a close, suggesting that the discussion could continue over the buffet lunch that was about to be served.

Stephen watched their colleagues file out of the lecture theatre, judging it safe to move, as his persistent hard-on had finally succumbed to a combination of boredom brought on by an excess of other people’s academic zeal and unsuitable seating.

“Cutter, wakey, wakey!” He backed the exhortation up with a light nudge to the ribs.

Nick turned to face him, his eyebrows drawn together into a frown. “There isn’t enough bloody evidence in the fossil record to support those conclusions. I’ve looked at most of those specimens.”

“He sounded bloody confident,” said Stephen, standing up and stretching his back, feeling the bones and muscles realigning themselves into a more comfortable configuration.

“He always sounds bloody confident,” Nick commented, his expression still thoughtful. “Come on, I want to see what Alec thinks.”

Armed with a plate of sandwiches, sausage rolls and mini pork pies, Nick retreated into a corner with Alec Sharp and settled down to debate the merits of Taylor’s paper. From what Stephen had overheard while he was making polite conversation with the serious blonde PhD student who’d latched onto Nick in the coffee break, Sharp thought Taylor’s theory was controversial but persuasive. Opinion amongst the other academics appeared to be divided, with Rosie Gleeson dismissing the paper as ‘poppycock’ at one end of the spectrum, to Owen Roberts from Glasgow who clearly thought the sun shone out of Taylor’s rather ample backside.

It was obvious to Stephen that Nick was preoccupied with Taylor’s conclusions for the rest of the day. He paid little attention to the afternoon talks, although he did sit up and take notice during Sharp’s own paper on the end-Permian extinction. The evening was spent in the Highbury Vaults again followed by an Italian meal at a restaurant on Park Street. Stephen ended up sitting between Nick and Frank Taylor’s daughter, Karen, who proved to have almost no small-talk whatsoever. But, as Nick was busily debating her father’s conclusions with him over a plate of spaghetti marinara, Stephen had little choice than to try to make conversation with her.

In a dialogue that bore a remarkable similarity to Twenty Questions, Stephen discovered that Karen Taylor had done a degree in Earth Sciences at Bristol, and Alec Sharp had been her PhD supervisor. She’d then taken a job as her father’s assistant. Karen had lost her mother to cancer as a young child and clearly worshipped her father. She’d grown up on various digs around the world and, when Stephen expressed mild surprise at her decision to follow her father into palaeontology, she’d just smiled and changed the subject, leaving him wondering exactly whose choice it had actually been.

Nick and Stephen were as late to bed as they’d been the previous night and both of them were yawning when they finally slipped under the duvet. Nick spooned behind Stephen in the bed and looped an arm around his waist to stroke Stephen’s half-hard cock.

“You haven’t been like that all day, have you?” he murmured, his breath ghosting over the back of Stephen’s neck.

“It would have been no thanks to you if I had’ve been.” Stephen pressed his arse into Nick’s groin. “You’re a bloody prick-tease, Cutter.”

“Got distracted by Taylor and his sodding triceratops. I don’t care what Alec says, there simply isn’t sufficient evidence in the fossil record to make that jump.” Nick rubbed up against Stephen and settled his own cock into the crack of Stephen’s arse.

“It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is.”

“So you think he’s wrong?”

“I didn’t say that. I just don’t think the examples he used proved his case.”

“He’s right about the total absence of juvenile torosaurus.”

Nick sighed and nibbled lightly on Stephen’s shoulder. “The fossil record is miniscule in comparison with the sheer number of creatures we have absolutely no evidence whatsoever for. We’ve seen beasties that bear no relation to anything we have evidence for.” Nick reached behind him and Stephen heard a cap being flipped off a tube. A moment later, a cool, slick finger slipped between his buttocks and rubbed lightly over his hole.

Stephen pushed back against the finger. It was nice to know that his lover wasn’t totally preoccupied by thoughts of long-dead animals. He felt Nick guide the head of his cock to press against the tight ring of muscle. Stephen drew his left leg up to steady himself and enjoyed the slight burn of the slow, steady penetration.

“The bugger was even smugger than usual tonight,” Nick commented, thrusting lazily into Stephen while continuing to stroke his cock.

Nick was perfectly capable of continuing a conversation while making love, especially when he had something on his mind, but Stephen didn’t have quite the same talent for multi-tasking, not when Nick’s cock was raking his prostate and setting off fireworks deep inside him. He managed the occasional grunt in response, enjoying the caress of Nick’s Scottish accent, deepened by a combination of alcohol and arousal. Stephen pushed back onto the hard cock and allowed the lazy movements of Nick’s hips to drive his own dick into his lover’s fist.

“Did the daughter say anything interesting?”

“No,” said Stephen with perfect truth.

“Man’s got more money than sense,” Nick growled, going off on another tangent. His next thrust was harder and deeper, drawing an appreciative moan from Stephen’s lips. Nick chucked. “More fucking, less talking? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” He drew back, took his hand off Stephen’s dick, settled it firmly on his hip instead and started to fuck him in earnest.

“Thought you’d never get the hint,” Stephen gasped as he started to stroke his cock in time with Nick’s thrusts.

Moments later, Stephen spilled into his own hand, his arse clenching around Nick and sending him over the edge at the same time. They lay there, still joined, and Nick held him close while the final aftershocks of orgasm ran through Stephen’s body.

Nick pressed a kiss into the hollow between Stephen’s shoulder blades. “Never gets old, does it?” he murmured.

Stephen twisted around in his arms for a kiss. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Still don’t understand what you see in me. Nearly every woman in the room wanted you, you know that, don’t you? And several of the men.”

Stephen, well-used to Nick’s post-coital insecurities, simply kissed him on the lips. “None of them are you, Cutter, and it’s you I want. Anyway, Rosie says I’ll have her to contend with if I hurt you. And she’s damned scary.”

He saw Nick’s mouth curl into a familiar smile. “Aye, that she is.” A moment later Nick murmured sleepily, “Your turn to fetch a cloth.”

Stephen laughed and did as he’d been asked. On the way back to the bathroom he paused by the window, glancing out of the net curtains. A figure under a lamppost on the other side of the road drew his attention. A shiver ran down his spine as a hand was raised, as though in greeting, then whoever it was turned and disappeared into the shadows, leaving Stephen feeling as though someone had just walked over his grave.

He turned to back to the bed, but Nick had already drifted off into sleep. It was several hours before Stephen was able to do the same.


	3. Chapter 3

The bleeping of the alarm on Stephen’s watch pulled him out of a dark dream. He groped blindly for an off button that seemed to have shrunk from small to miniscule overnight and tried to shake off the feeling of unease that had settled on him like a heavy blanket.

For once it was Nick who rolled out of bed first and set the kettle to boil before having a quick shower. Stephen was still sprawled out in bed mentally cursing the amount of red wine he’d drunk the previous night, when Nick emerged, preternaturally cheerful for once. Stephen swallowed a too-hot cup of tea and then tried to revive himself in the shower.

At 9am, after a very welcome cooked breakfast, they picked up Rosie Gleeson and one of her PhD students from the side of the Wills Memorial Building and, after the obligatory half an hour spent watching Alec Sharp herding cats, a convoy consisting of two departmental minibuses, Nick’s Hilux and several cars, set off for South Wales, and the day’s field trip to Bendrick Rock, a few miles east of Cardiff.

An early morning mist hung in the air over the river as they crossed the wide sweep of the Second Severn Crossing.

“I always object to paying to get into Wales,” commented Nick, earning him a light slap from Rosie in the back of the Hilux.

“Just be thankful we don’t make you pay to get out again, you tight-fisted Scotch git.”

Their arrival on the road leading to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve base of H.M.S Cambria was timed to coincide with low tide and, to Stephen’s amazement, no one had managed to get lost on the way, which was nothing short of a miracle considering the number of absent-minded professors in the group. Frank Taylor climbed out of a brand new black Range Rover, still holding forth on the subject of triceratops to the various students who’d been daft enough to accept a lift from him.

The route down to the bay was via a narrow footpath that ran along the side of the naval base before joining a strip of grass between a low cliff and the rocky shore line. There had been some light rainfall on the drive over, making the rocks slippery, but the rain would help show up the footprints. Stephen knew from past experience that they could be difficult to find, and sometimes high tides would throw up a covering of sand in places, hiding the tracks from all but the most determined of visitors. The last time he’d been here he’d watched someone diligently sweeping away a large mound of wet sand with a brush until they’d uncovered one of the trackways.

As they walked along the shore, with the muddy brown waters of Cardiff bay to their left, Rosie Gleeson explained to the various students and those unfamiliar with the site that 220 million years ago, in the later part of the Triassic, this area had been in the arid belt north of the equator, roughly where the Sahara desert now was, and like the Sahara, South Wales had been a hot desert and the Vale of Glamorgan had been an area of rocky limestone hills.

“It was a time of low annual rainfall,” Rosie explained. “But when it did rain it sure as hell chucked it down. There were frequent flash floods, and the rivers carried down boulders, pebbles, sand, silt and mud to a large lake, or inland sea, where the Severn estuary is now.” She gestured expansively with her arm. “You can see the results in these almost-flat beds of rock between here and Sully Island. But just because it was a desert doesn’t mean the area was uninhabited.”

While Rosie was talking, the group were making their way down onto the rocks of the shore and crossing a concrete slipway to reach one of the first trackways. Stephen, scouting a little way ahead of the main group, had located a set of indentations in the flat rock surface, clearly made by a three-toed theropod, the rainwater showing the footsteps up with remarkable clarity. He went down on one knee, examining the tracks. Fossil trackways had been one of Stephen’s specialisms for several years now, long before the anomaly project had given him the opportunity to track dinosaurs for real, but he never tired of the sight of these shallow imprints left behind by living creatures that had walked the earth so very long ago.

Their colleagues milled around on the shore, finding more examples for themselves, exclaiming in delight over the footprints, following tracks made by small, meat-eating dinosaurs, then comparing them to a set of larger, four-toed prints left behind by a larger herbivore that had walked on four legs rather than two.

“They’d never believe it, would they?” The smug tones belonged to Frank Taylor and were carried to Stephen’s ear by the slight breeze blowing in from the estuary. “We could tell them exactly what it looked like here and they’d still never believe us.”

Still crouched down beside a particularly fine pair of footprints, Stephen angled his head and looked back. Taylor and his daughter were standing a little way behind the main group. Karen’s hair was loose, whipped around her face by the breeze, but there was no mistaking the shine in her eyes, or the rapt expression on her face. Stephen had seen Connor looking like that the first time the student had ever stepped through an anomaly into the past. Excited, awed and scared, all at the same time. The look on Karen Taylor’s face was the same, but in her case it was the memory of excitement that was lighting up her eyes.

The girl noticed Stephen looking at her and quickly turned away, avoiding his gaze. A moment later she caught her father’s arm to attract his attention and nodded in the direction of the cliff. Stephen stood up and turned back towards Rosie and the rest of the group, casually brushing sand off the knees of his jeans, but not before he’d seen a figure move back out of sight at the top of the overhang.

Frank Taylor muttered something under his breath to his daughter and started to walk off towards the slipway. Stephen heard him remark casually to someone that he’d drunk too much coffee over breakfast.

Nick had wandered off by himself towards another set of tracks closer to the water. Stephen caught him up, slipped his arm around Nick’s waist and murmured in his ear, “Cutter, do me a favour and keep Taylor’s daughter occupied. I don’t want her following me.”

The breeze was making Nick’s hair stand up on end, and only served to accentuate his surprised expression.

Stephen kissed him lightly on the lips. “Just trust me, OK?”

Nick nodded, his blue eyes quizzical, but he went to do Stephen’s bidding. Using the same excuse as Frank Taylor had, Stephen walked casually up the slipway. His quarry had disappeared from sight, but the damp grass told Stephen all he needed to know. Moving quickly and quietly, he slipped over a broken-down fence and made his way along the edge of a run-down industrial estate, deserted on a Sunday, heading in the same direction as Taylor.

The crack of glass breaking underfoot some way ahead made Stephen drop to his knees for a moment behind a weed-covered mound of earth. He heard Taylor’s voice, but wasn’t close enough to make out the words. It was difficult to move silently on the rubbish-strewn ground, but Stephen had had plenty of practice. As far as he could tell, Taylor was on the far side of a tumbledown shed and if the man really was taking a piss – which Stephen doubted – then he wasn’t doing it on his own.

A second voice, a woman’s, said something that Stephen didn’t catch and Taylor laughed. Stephen worked his way closer, avoiding lager cans, a tangle of barbed wire and a used condom. The youth of Sully clearly chose the classiest spots to make out in.

“So when are we going through again?” Taylor asked with obvious excitement in his voice.

“Patience, Frank. It’s not like catching a bus, you know.”

Stephen stiffened. He knew that voice all too well. His stomach constricted painfully and it took all his self-control not to simply step out from his hiding place and confront the woman who’d spent the last six months leading them all a very merry dance. Stephen hadn’t seen her since he’d followed her through the anomaly in the kitchen at the football stadium and then lost her in the spaghetti junction of anomalies. Unless the previous night counted.

His feelings for Helen had faded a long time ago, but old habits died hard, and he was all too conscious of his raised heartbeat. She’d left her husband in pursuit of a dream that had become reality. Stephen could almost understand that, but what he couldn’t understand – or forgive – was the way she had toyed with Nick since she’d reappeared. Nick still had feelings for her, Stephen was fully aware of that, but he also resented Helen’s games. And from what Stephen was privy to now, Helen Cutter was very much up to her old tricks again.

“How did the paper go down?” Helen’s voice was low, with a husky timbre that Stephen had once found so alluring.

“Cutter wasn’t convinced,” Taylor sneered. “Spent the whole evening quizzing me about my evidence.”

“Nick always was hard to convince.” Helen’s voice had suddenly taken on a harder edge.

“Did you know he’s shagging that pretty boy assistant of his?” The sneer was even more pronounced now.

“Nick’s finally come out, has he?” Helen purred. “My, oh my, how very daring.” She sounded more amused than annoyed and Stephen wondered how long Helen had known about their relationship. Taylor’s revelation clearly hadn’t come as any surprise to her. “Just be patient a while longer, Frank, darling. I haven’t forgotten my promises. Just as long as you haven’t forgotten yours.”

“The money’s in your account already,” Taylor snapped. “I don’t do patience, Helen. Life’s too short.” A moment later, he cursed violently under his breath and Stephen heard glass and stones crunching under his boots as Taylor strode back in the direction of the shore.

Helen Cutter had clearly executed one of her well-known vanishing acts.

Stephen took a quick look around the side of the ruined building to confirm his suspicions and then made his way back to the slipway at a run, hoping to beat Taylor back to the rocks. He was successful and managed to slip back unnoticed, while Cutter was still holding forth on the subject of theropod tracks to Taylor’s daughter.

Seeing her father returning at a casual stroll, Karen Taylor excused herself with barely concealed impatience and hurried off over the rocks in his direction.

“So what was that all about?” Nick asked as soon as she was out of earshot.

“Taylor’s theories were based on direct observation, not fossil evidence,” Stephen said quietly.

Nick’s eyes widened, but his reply was drowned out by a low growl of thunder out over the estuary and large, fat raindrops started to fall from a leaden sky. By the time they’d made it back to the vehicles, Stephen had managed to fill Nick in on what he had seen and heard, but the presence of Rosie Gleeson and her student in the Hilux put paid to any further discussion and Nick was forced to maintain a somewhat strained attempt at conversation all the way back along the M4 to Bristol.

After a late lunch in the department and time spent examining some poster presentations, Nick and Stephen were finally able to say their goodbyes and slip away.

“What the hell is she playing at now?” Nick demanded, slamming the Hilux into gear and driving off up University Road.

“Running very exclusive safaris to the past?” hazarded Stephen. “Do you think Lester could put a trace on Taylor’s bank account?”

Nick shrugged. “I have no bloody idea. But I intend to find out.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sir James Lester leaned back in his chair and stared down his nose at Nick as if he was still somehow responsible for his wife’s eccentricities. “What do you expect me to do about it, Cutter? Complain to the editor of New Scientist? Have Taylor banned from publishing in Fossils Weekly, or wherever you lot send your ramblings to?”

“Snoop on his financial records?” countered Nick. “Come on, Lester. You must have some contacts you can use to find out what she’s playing at.”

“Tap his phone,” Stephen suggested.

“That needs authority from the Home Secretary,” Lester sniffed.

“So get it,” Nick said impatiently. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on, man? What’s happened to your curiosity?”

“If it hasn’t escaped your notice, Cutter, your wife invariably seems to end up one jump ahead of us. What makes you think now will be any different?”

“Then put Taylor under bloody surveillance or something!” Nick shot a glance at Captain Ryan, sitting quietly in the corner of Lester’s room, dressed, for once, in civilian clothes, although Stephen was sure that the soldier’s lightly-padded blue jacket concealed a Glock 19 in a shoulder rig.

“Do you know how much that costs?” Lester sounded aghast at the very suggestion.

Ryan’s lips twitched slightly but the Special Forces leader was doing a good job of concealing his amusement. “I could take a look around his house, sir,” Ryan said blandly.

“How very illegal,” muttered Lester. “If you get caught, naturally I’ll deny any knowledge of your extra-curricular activities. Now, if you’ve all quite finished, some of us have work to do.”

“And Taylor’s bank accounts?” Nick pressed.

“I’ll make some phone calls,” Lester said. “Now, shoo, all of you! And I still haven’t had your reports on the last anomaly, Cutter. I’ll expect them on my desk by the end of today.”

The mention of outstanding reports was enough to cause Nick to beat a hasty retreat, followed at a more leisurely pace by Stephen and Ryan. By mutual assent, the three men made their way to a cafe around the corner from the Home Office and armed themselves with coffee and bacon rolls. Stephen kept the receipt, just to annoy Lester with on their next expenses claim.

“So where does Professor Taylor live?” asked Ryan after he’d demolished his breakfast.

“A bloody great big mansion in Dorset.”

“What’s it like?”

“I’m not exactly on his list of weekend guests,” Nick retorted.

“Looks like Mrs Cutter might be,” commented Ryan. “Give me the address and I’ll check it out.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No way, Professor.” Ryan’s voice held a note of finality but all it did was cause a very familiar stubborn look to settle on Nick’s face.

“He’s right, Cutter,” Stephen said. “Ryan stands a better chance of pulling this off by himself. You’re not exactly qualified for breaking and entering.”

To Stephen’s relief, for once Nick didn’t argue. He knew his lover respected the captain, in spite – or maybe because – of Ryan’s somewhat direct methods in the Permian on Nick’s first trip through an anomaly.

“When are you going to take a look?” Stephen asked on the pavement outside the café while they waited for Nick to come back from the loo.

“No time like the present,” Ryan said. “But do me a favour and keep the professor on a short lead. I was serious when I said I didn’t want company.”

Stephen grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

* * * * *

Cutter had been right, Ryan reflected, as he drove slowly past the front gates of Byfield Manor. Helen Cutter’s associate really did live in a bloody great big mansion. The house itself was only partially visible down a tree-lined drive, but Ryan managed to snatch a brief glimpse of an imposing, ivy-clad building with tall chimneys and a castellated tower at one end. The massive iron gates were closed and, as far as Ryan could see, the whole estate was surrounded by an enormous stone wall.

Ryan parked his car in the nearby village and decided to take a walk. In his experience it wasn’t unusual to find public footpaths in close proximity to old estates and it was a nice day so a man with a rucksack over his shoulder wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention. Ryan bought a bottle of water, a ham sandwich and a bar of chocolate from the village shop and set out on his reconnaissance.

He struck lucky almost immediately, finding a signpost for a footpath running along the west side of the stone wall. It was overgrown and didn’t look like it took much traffic, which was bonus. So far as Ryan could see, there were no cameras protecting the perimeter, but he was willing to bet the house itself wasn’t unprotected, although most people were less security-conscious during the day and he was hoping Professor Taylor was no exception to that rule.

After nearly a mile, the wall on Ryan’s right turned a corner, away from the line of the footpath and, as the soldier had seen no one at all since leaving the village, he decided it was as good a point as any to try a little illegal activity. The wall was an easy climb and he dropped down into the grounds in the shade of a large chestnut tree. Working his way back to the mansion took very little time. The grounds were obviously well-tended but Ryan saw no signs of any gardeners or other staff. A stable block at the rear had been converted into garaging and contained several extremely expensive cars, but not the black Range Rover that Stephen Hart had reported Taylor as driving at the weekend. Nor was it parked on the gravel drive at the front of the house.

Ryan retreated some distance from the house and drew his mobile out of his pocket and pressed one of the numbers on speed dial. Stephen Hart answered on the third ring.

“Ryan?”

“Nothing to panic about,” Ryan said quietly. “Get Cutter to phone Taylor’s landline. I want to know if anyone picks up.”

“Onto it,” Stephen said. “Do you want me to phone you back?”

“I’ll wait.”

Ryan heard Stephen talking to Cutter them a couple of minutes later, Stephen said, “No answer.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep you posted,” Ryan said and then cut the connection.

Ten minutes later, courtesy of an unlatched pantry window, Ryan was inside Byfield Manor. Taylor might be as rich as Croesus, but his security clearly sucked, as Temple would have said. The house was expensively but tastefully furnished, with genuine Afghan and Persian rugs festooning the floors. Ryan moved quickly from room to room looking for Taylor’s study. He doubted he’d find anything anywhere else and he didn’t have the time for an extensive search. Acting on instinct, he made his way to the round tower in the north-west corner. When he encountered his first locked door Ryan knew he’d made the right decision.

Picking locks wasn’t as easy as most books or TV shows made out but Ryan had been taught by the best. He had the door open in under a minute and paused to check for any deliberately left tell-tales or traps before crossing the threshold into the tower. The ground floor contained a spacious library with mahogany bookcases from floor to ceiling. A huge leather-topped desk in one corner was almost as untidy as the one in Cutter’s office, but there was no computer, so Ryan didn’t think he’d found Taylor’s office.

The next floor contained what looked like a museum. Wooden cabinets took the place of bookcases, and there were any number of glass-fronted display cabinets containing row upon row of fossils. At one end of the room, under a window providing ample natural light, a work surface stretched out on either side of a large sink, with microscopes, drills, anglepoise lamps and various other items of equipment. Ryan guessed this was where Taylor cleaned specimens and prepared them for display or storage. But it wasn’t the enormous ammonite on one side of the sink that drew his attention – it was the distinctive triple-horned skull poking out of the sink itself.

Ryan quickly crossed the room and, after pausing to make sure that no one was outside in sight of the window, he examined the specimen that had caught his eye. The Special Forces captain had spent enough time around Cutter and his assistant to know the difference between fossils and fresh bone, but even if he hadn’t, the scraps of dried flesh still clinging to the skull would have told their own story. It looked like the skull was from a baby triceratops and it was in the process of being cleaned. A set of plastic dishes nearby held all the pieces of what looked like dried skin and sinew that had been removed from the bone.

Without touching it, Ryan snapped photographs from as many angles as he could on his mobile phone and promptly emailed them to Stephen Hart with the message, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ He’d found enough to confirm Cutter’s suspicions, but Ryan hadn’t finished yet.

Moving as silently as a hunting cat, he made his way back to the staircase, still listening intently for any sounds in the empty house. Hearing nothing to alarm him, the soldier continued upwards to the third floor. A second locked door prevented his progress. Ryan bent down and peered through the keyhole. He’d found Taylor’s combination of office and study. This lock proved more of a challenge than the first one but it eventually yielded with a loud click. Ryan didn’t think he’d get this one locked again on his way out, but he was wearing gloves, so even if Taylor did get suspicious and call the police there would be no prints left behind that shouldn’t be there.

His computer knowledge wasn’t good enough to be sure of getting in and out of either Taylor’s desktop or the laptop set up on a second table in the room, so he contented himself with scanning the papers on the desk. A leather-bound notebook caught his eye immediately. It was battered and water-stained and looked like the sort of thing he’d seen Cutter carrying. Being careful to note its exact position, Ryan flipped through the pages, looking for the most recent notes.

Bingo. He’d hit the jackpot. In Taylor’s small, neat handwriting – the complete opposite of Cutter’s fluid but illegible scrawl – he found the record of a trip through an anomaly in company with both Helen Cutter and his daughter. Ryan spread the pages of the notebook with his fingers and quickly photographed the notes. He’d taken a record of ten pages when his adrenaline-heightened senses alerted him to the crunch of tyres on gravel. Swiftly replacing the notebook in exactly the same place on the desk, Ryan moved without hesitation to the door, taking the decision to simply leave it open, trusting to the fact that he’d left no trace of his presence to arouse Taylor’s suspicions. An unlocked door could be blamed on someone else. It had looked to Ryan like the daughter used the same room as well.

At the bottom of the stairs, Ryan paused long enough to use his lock-picks to click the bolt back into place before moving at speed back towards the kitchen. The sound of voices nearby made him curse silently and duck into an open doorway to what looked like a reception room. Ryan slipped behind the heavy wooden door and simply waited. He’d have to be very unlucky indeed for either Taylor or his daughter to come into this particular room, so the soldier wasn’t unduly worried, but any job like this carried an element of risk and he couldn’t afford to let his guard drop. He also needed to be out of the house and preferably away from the grounds before either of them noticed the unlocked office door.

Time passed slowly. Ryan heard Taylor check for phone messages in the hall. Someone had rung to confirm a delivery time for a consignment of specimens from a dealer in Berlin, the local garage had called to say Karen Taylor’s car was ready for collection and there had been two callers who hadn’t left messages. One of which had probably been Cutter.

Taylor called something to his daughter that Ryan didn’t quite catch.

“I’ll make some coffee and bring it up,” she replied, which indicated she was going to head in the direction of the kitchen, thus cutting off Ryan’s means of escape. Time had suddenly started to run against the soldier. Ryan took a split second decision and made for the main door. Once outside it was a simple matter to make his way around the house at a crouching run, staying beneath the level of the windows, then sprint for the cover of a tangle of rhododendron bushes. He made it over the wall without anyone’s cries of alarm ringing in his ears and once on the public footpath, he walked briskly back in the direction of the village and his car.

After putting a safe distance of ten miles between him and Byfield Manor and ensuring he wasn’t being followed, Ryan pulled into a lay-by and fished his phone out of his pocket.

“Stephen? Did you get the photos? Good. I’ll meet you in Cutter’s office in about three hours.”

Then, for the next five minutes, Ryan closed his eyes and let the adrenaline surge ebb out of his body.

He had the evidence Cutter had wanted and he hadn’t been arrested. The next bit was up to Lester.

* * * * *

The look on Lester’s face was equally as disapproving as it had been earlier in the day, but on this occasion they were now gathered in the sitting room of his immaculate London flat. A huge floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the Thames and provided a stunning view of the London Eye with a myriad lights reflected off the water in the darkness.

Much to Stephen’s surprise, Lester had actually offered everyone coffee. The mugs were Wedgwood, the coffee was excellent and the tray they were served on was covered in cartoon cats. Stephen wondered vaguely if any of them really knew Lester at all, even though they’d worked with the man for nearly a year.

Nick was leaning forward in one of the immaculate white leather chairs, clearly impatient to get on with what they’d come to discuss. Patience had never been one of his virtues. Ryan, on the other hand, looked deceptively relaxed, as though he drank coffee with their notoriously irascible boss every day.

“Well?” demanded Nick.

“Small talk, Cutter,” Lester commented, dropping a small lump of sugar into his coffee and stirring it slowly. “It’s like foreplay. It’s considered good manners in some circles.”

Stephen bit back a grin and did his best to avoid Ryan’s eyes, knowing the soldier was doing the same.

“Stop playing games, Lester. You’ve seen Ryan’s photos and you wouldn’t have asked us here if you didn’t have something to tell us.”

Lester sighed theatrically. “Oh well, onto the main event.” The man’s grey-green eyes sharpened and a slight smile curved his thin lips. “Taylor’s bank records show a payment of half a million pounds being made last Thursday to a woman named Helen Lawrence.”

A look of amazement settled on Nick’s face and he ran his hand through his hair in a distracted gesture that Stephen was all too familiar with. “Helen Lawrence?”

“The identification provided to the bank when the receiving account was set up three months ago shows a woman who bears a striking resemblance to your wife.” Lester pulled a piece of paper out of a folder on the settee next to him and handed it over to Nick.

Stephen stared at a photocopy of a passport. It bore a bank stamp confirming that it was a true copy of the original. The woman in the picture was undoubtedly Helen Cutter, albeit with her hair neatly combed and wearing a small amount of make-up, something that Stephen never remembered her doing.

“It’s Helen all right,” Nick said, looking down at the photo, his expression still bewildered.

“She isn’t wanted by the police for anything,” commented Ryan. “So using her own first name is sensible. A new surname is easier to get used to. She’s done that once already.”

“Half an million pounds?” Nick said quietly, still staring at the photograph. “What the hell would Helen want with half a million pounds?”

“A new pair of walking boots? A night in the Dorchester? I have absolutely no idea, Cutter,” Lester said. “But the fact remains that’s what she’s got.”

“Money makes flying under the radar a damn sight easier, Professor,” said Ryan. “So does having a new identity. She’s probably had enough of roughing it since she disappeared. With that amount in the bank she can more or less do what she wants.”

“And I don’t imagine she finds much to spend it on in the Jurassic, or wherever it is she likes to hang about when she isn’t getting on my nerves,” said Lester. “More coffee, gentlemen?”

Nick carried on staring at the piece of paper in his hands until Stephen gently removed it and handed it back to Lester. “What do we do now?” Stephen asked, feeling almost as puzzled as Nick looked.

Lester spread his hands. “You were the ones coming up with all the ideas this morning, if I recall correctly. Since then, as I trust you’ve noticed, the professor’s wish has been my command. I’ve checked Taylor’s bank account, Captain Ryan has practised his house-breaking skills, and I’ve even had a tap put on the wretched man’s phone.” He frowned in Nick’s direction. “The Home Secretary was not amused by that, by the way. It turns out your Professor Taylor’s daughter went to school with his son. I’ve already called in more favours than I care to think of, and frankly, I’m not sure where any of this is getting us. Your suggestions, please, gentlemen?”

“I’ll take a detailed look at her bank records, sir,” Ryan said. “There might be some clues to what she’s been getting up to buried in there.”

“We’ll go through the notebook entries again,” Stephen added.

“We can’t afford another rank amateur messing around in the past,” Lester said, his gaze settling on Nick again. “I want this stopped, Cutter, before we end up with a photograph of a bloody triceratops all over the front cover of the National Geographic. Use your contacts. Find out if he has any other publications in the works. If I have to make use of DA notices I will, but if you can undermine his academic credibility, then for goodness’ sake get on with it. I thought behaving like a bunch of prima donnas is what you academics excel at?”


	5. Chapter 5

A week later, a large amount of networking around the academic world, together with calls to the editors of The Palaeontological Review, The Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology and any other publication Nick and Stephen could think of, had confirmed Lester’s suspicions. Frank Taylor had been in contact with various publications asking about backlogs and timescales, hinting that he had something extraordinary in the works. He’d also made numerous cryptic remarks to colleagues about something big in the offing.

Nick had mustered a number of cutting remarks in return, but it was clear to Stephen that his lover was still more caught up in contemplating what on earth Helen was playing at rather than in attempting to undermine Taylor’s credibility.

By mid-afternoon on the fourth day, Nick had descended into monosyllables and Stephen was feeling distinctly edgy. When Helen had first reappeared, it had brought back memories that they’d both spent a long time pushing to the back of their minds. Six months after Helen’s original disappearance, Stephen’s guilt-ridden revelation of their affair had put a strain on his friendship with Nick, but they’d worked through it, united in their feelings of loss. Four years later, when they’d finally stopped pussy-footing around and accepted that their feelings for each other went deeper than mere friendship, Stephen had at last begun to relax. Then Helen’s return had thrown everything up in the air again.

Nick’s news that he had turned down Helen’s invitation to join her in wandering the vastness of time had helped, but there were still times when Stephen’s insecurities threatened to overwhelm him.

“Penny for them.” Nick’s voice was low and warm. His hands settled on Stephen’s shoulders and started to knead gently at his tense muscles.

“Not worth that much, Cutter,” Stephen said equally quietly, staring out of the window.

Nick’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “I’m not going to leave you, Stephen. You do know that, don’t you? My marriage to Helen was over a long time ago. She was always more interested in her work than she was in me. We fought like cat and dog, and you know it. Oh, I was as bad, I’ll freely admit. I laughed at her theories when I should maybe have listened a bit more. But, for whatever reason, when she did come back, she decided to play games with us all. Not exactly a recipe for picking up where we left off.” A pair of strong hands turned Stephen around and cupped his chin, a thumb rubbing thoughtfully over the ever-present stubble.

Stephen tipped his head back and stared up at Nick, doing his best to summon a smile. “Sorry, Cutter. I thought I’d got past the stage of adolescent angst.”

Nick’s answering smile was all that Stephen needed by way of reassurance and he found himself pulled into a hug.

The almost simultaneous ringing of two mobile phones broke the silence and their embrace.

Connor had picked up a report on the internet of something that sounded suspiciously like a small plesiosaur in one of the larger ponds on Hampstead Heath. Ryan was already on his way to pick up Connor and Abby, and Claudia was going straight there. Pausing only to pin a note on Nick’s door cancelling his 4pm tutorial, the two men left the building at a run, earning a look of disapproval from the Faculty Dean and three wistful sighs from members of Stephen’s fan club, otherwise known as Nick’s students.

By the time they reached the heath, the local police, acting on Claudia’s direction had cleared the general public from area. The discovery of a World War Two mine in one of the ponds during a student prank involving a replica of the Loch Ness Monster provided a reasonable cover story and allowed Ryan’s men to pass themselves off as bomb disposal experts.

Abby had insisted on stopping off on their way there to buy up what looked like the entire contents of a fishmonger’s slab and Ryan was now hauling diving equipment out of his Range Rover while muttering that it smelt like Billingsgate Market. Stephen grinned and went to help him.

To Stephen’s surprise, the creature was pleasantly easy to deal with, accepting fish straight out of Abby’s hand, exhibiting nothing but curiosity for human beings. While Abby kept it entertained and Connor bounced about like an excited puppy taking photographs, Stephen and Ryan slipped into the water in full diving kit. The anomaly was easy to locate. It was off to one side of the pond, sparking brightly, even in the slightly murky water.

Using fish for bait, Stephen succeeded in leading the creature back to the anomaly and through it while Ryan tendered him on a length of line. He caught a brief glimpse of clear, blue waters whilst leading his playful companion about ten metres from the anomaly and dumping an entire bagful of fish, before turning around and finning quickly back to the safety of his own time.

He made a circle of his finger and thumb to Ryan, signifying success, and then the two of them spent the next 15 minutes securing a large, fine-meshed net across the pond. It was strong enough to hold against most things and all they had to do for the rest of the afternoon was repatriate a few smaller fish that got entangled in the netting.

The anomaly faded and finally winked out of existence after three hours, and a final trawl of the pond with another net revealed nothing more threatening than a small pike. While Stephen was helping Ryan re-pack the diving gear, Nick’s mobile went off. Stephen expected it to be Lester, demanding to know whether their unexpected guest had been repatriated but, instead, Nick’s eyes widened and he gestured with his hand to catch Stephen’s attention.

“Taylor? Yes, it’s Cutter. What can I do for you?”

Stephen rolled his eyes at Ryan. Frank Taylor had probably got wind of the fact that they’d been sniffing around after him and was almost certainly ringing Nick to complain.

“Calm down, man!” Nick snapped, using the usual gestalt counselling methods that invariably reduced his more sensitive students to quivering wrecks. “Start at the beginning…” A minute later Nick interrupted him with the words, “Frank, stop right there. I’ll be with you in…” he glanced down at his watch, “…two hours or so. Stay where you are. Do you understand me?”

He disconnected the call and stared at the phone in amazement.

“Cutter?” Stephen raised his eyebrows. “What the hell’s happened? I thought he was about to rip you a second arsehole or something.”

Nick shook his head, still looking slightly dazed. “His daughter’s disappeared off through an anomaly with Helen, or wouldn’t come back through one, or something. Taylor wasn’t exactly very coherent.”

Stephen whistled through his teeth. “Helluva way to escape the shackles of parental authority.”

A swift grin lit Nick’s face. “Come on, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

Ryan stepped up to them, a frown on the soldier’s face. “Professor, it could be a…”

“…trap,” Nick finished for him. “I’m not a total idiot, Ryan. We’re going in mob-handed. Claudia, can you finish off here?”

Claudia nodded. “I’ll report to Lester as well. Be careful, Nick.”

“I’m always careful!” said Nick, meaning it, and clearly failing to understand why the entire team responded with raised eyebrows and amused looks.

With Ryan following in his vehicle accompanied by Abby and Connor, Nick drove to Byfield Manor. Traffic was relatively light and they arrived in just under two hours. Nick pulled up in front of the huge black iron gates and pressed the button on the intercom. “Cutter,” was all he got the chance to say before the gates swung inwards.

By the time they’d parked in front of the house, Frank Taylor was waiting for them on the steps, dressed in a green, multi-pocketed waistcoat over a khaki shirt and baggy, comfortable trousers. Stephen glanced down at the dried red mud on his boots and automatically noted that he hadn’t acquired that from his own garden. He looked like someone who had dressed for any eventuality. There was a look of mingled anger and desperation on his face.

“Your bloody wife has run off with my daughter!”

Stephen hurried to Nick’s side, Ryan no more than a pace behind him, half-expecting Taylor to take a swing at him. Nick raised both hands, palms outwards in a conciliatory gesture.

“She left me eight years ago, Frank, and since she reappeared she hasn’t exactly made much of an attempt to talk things through, so less of the your wife, if you don’t mind. I’m not responsible for Helen’s actions.”

“You got over her fast enough,” Taylor sneered, with a contemptuous glance at Stephen.

Before anyone else had time to react, Nick pulled his fist back and hit Taylor hard in the face. The other academic landed on his arse on the stone steps, one hand flying up to his bloodied nose.

“Actually, I didn’t, but that’s none of your fucking business,” growled Nick. “And yes, I have Stephen now, and that’s none of your fucking business either. Now, do you want my help, or are we just going to stand here and let Captain Ryan referee the fight?”

Taylor stared at the blood on his hand, as though he was trying to work out where it had come from, and then looked up, apparently noticing Nick’s companions for the first time. “Captain Ryan?” he said, sounding as dazed as he looked.

“The man in black carrying the big gun,” Nick clarified helpfully. “He also has a very useful right hook and he isn’t afraid to use it on recalcitrant academics.” He waved his hand at the others. “You know Stephen, and if you insult him again I’m leaving and everyone else is coming with him. I don’t think you’ve met either Abby Maitland or Connor Temple. They work with me.”

“Helping the government cover up the biggest scientific discovery ever. Yes, I know.” Taylor tried to lever himself up. “You’ve broken my fucking nose, Cutter.”

“Don’t be such a bloody drama queen, man.” Nick held down a hand and Taylor took it with a grimace and allowed himself to be hauled upright. “It’s just a bit squashed. Abby will deal with it for you, she’s used to dealing with dumb animals. Now come on, you didn’t call me here just to insult my friends and spout off about government conspiracies.”

Ten minutes later, they were all gathered in Taylor’s spacious kitchen, with Abby handing cold cloths to Taylor, and Ryan calmly making coffee, while the owner of the house recounted his most recent dealings with Helen Cutter.

From Taylor’s rendition of events, it sounded very much like Helen had first made contact with him a couple of weeks after her meeting with Nick in the Cretaceous and her subsequent arrest by Lester. Nick had exchanged a rueful glance with Stephen at that point. Both men knew Helen had never taken well to anything she regarded as a slight, and she hadn’t exactly been pleased about the arrest, or what she’d no doubt seen as Nick’s rejection of her. And it appeared from her approach to Frank Taylor that she had wanted someone to share the wonders of the past with. Or that was what she had claimed.

From his position lounging against a set of kitchen cupboards witnessing Nick’s interrogation of his fellow academic, Stephen could see Ryan watching the exchange equally intently, no doubt hoping that Nick would exercise more than his usual degree of subtlety and not give away the full extent of their knowledge of his activities. So far, all Nick had alluded to was the fact that Stephen had caught a glimpse of Helen at Bendrick Rock and overheard at least some of Taylor’s conversation with her. The subject of money hadn’t yet been mentioned.

Connor had his laptop open and was making notes while Abby was still handing over cold cloths, even though Taylor’s nose had finally stopped oozing blood.

“So what were you hoping to get out of this, Frank?” Nick asked, not doing a very good job of keeping the distaste out of his voice. “Fame? Fortune? A TV show called Time Travellers, or something equally tacky?”

“Don’t you understand anything, Cutter?” Taylor snapped back. “This is the greatest discovery ever, and I’m part of it!”

“And what did Helen want in return? Just the pleasure of your company?”

Stephen winced. Nick’s tone was diamond hard and for a minute Stephen thought that his lover had pushed just that little bit too hard, but Frank Taylor wasn’t silenced so easily.

“No, of course she didn’t. She wanted money as well. Probably to buy all the things she never got from you.” The sneer was back in the other man’s voice but on this occasion, Nick didn’t react with anything more than a rueful smile.

“Helen is the least materialistic woman I’ve ever known. What the hell does she want money for? In the old days it would have been to finance a dig, but she doesn’t need to do that any more, does she? Not when she can catch a taxi to the Cambrian, or wherever the hell she spends her time. Come on, Frank, you can do better than that.”

“She wanted a new identity,” Taylor admitted. “She said she was sick of being at the mercy of government goons.” His eyes flicked disparagingly to Ryan. “And she wanted enough money in the bank to give her back her independence.”

“According to her, she has the whole of bloody time as her playground. How much more independence does she want?” Nick shook his head, plainly not understanding, although it looked to Stephen very much like Ryan’s guesses had been pretty close to the truth. Nick stared appraisingly at Taylor. “Was that what your daughter wanted, Frank? Her independence?”

Frank Taylor winced and tried to disguise his reaction by dabbing at his nose again with a cloth. “She said she wanted to travel with Helen.”

“Could’ve just bought her an InterRail ticket,” Connor muttered. “That was what my dad did when I wanted to travel.”

Taylor shot the student a look loaded with scorn. “My daughter is a serious scientist.”

“Then why come bleating to me?” Nick asked, voicing the question on everyone’s lips.

“She promised to be back two days ago.” Taylor’s shoulders slumped as he spoke and the fight seemed to drain out of him. “Something has happened to her, Cutter, I know it has.”

Nick’s expression softened slightly. “Frank, I have absolutely no idea how Helen comes and goes the way she does. None of us has, but she was gone for eight years. Something about that tells me that whatever it is she does, it isn’t as easy as catching a Number 47 bus.”

“Karen said she would be back two days ago,” Taylor repeated. “It was the anniversary of her mother’s death, Cutter. We go to Marie’s grave together every year. It’s… important to us. To both of us. Karen said she’d be back by then and Helen promised.”

“I’m not sure how important promises are to Helen any more,” Nick said after a long and uncomfortable silence.

“Harsh, Nick,” said a voice from the doorway into the hall. “Very harsh.”

Ryan’s hand moved quickly to the gun holstered on his right thigh. Taylor jumped to his feet, overturning the chair. Nick followed suit. Connor yelped in surprise and Abby took a step backwards. Stephen moved quickly towards Ryan, careful not to get between the Special Forces captain and his target, and held up a hand in warning.

“Where’s Karen?” Taylor’s face had gone pale and he took a pace forward, anger replacing shock as the dominant expression. “Where’s my daughter?”

“We were… unavoidably detained,” Helen said carefully. “I told you that anomalies aren’t always predictable.” Her brown eyes turned to her husband. “I need your help, Nick.”

“What have you done, Helen? Where’s the girl?”

At Nick’s words, Frank Taylor barrelled past the table toward Helen Cutter, only to be grabbed by both Stephen and Ryan. He tried – and failed – to shake them off.

“Injured,” Helen admitted. She held a hand up in an irritable gesture. “Stop panicking, Frank. She’ll be fine once we can get to her.”

Nick’s eyebrows shot up and Taylor struggled even more. For a moment Stephen thought Ryan was seriously contemplating cracking the man over the head with the butt of his pistol, then the burly soldier heaved hard on Taylor’s arm and pressed him down into the chair that Abby had set back upright.

“Sit down before I tie you down!” the captain ordered, glaring without discrimination at both Frank Taylor and Helen Cutter, clearly wishing he could mete out the same treatment to her.

Helen glared back but Stephen realised that her calm was little more than skin-deep. He left Ryan to hold Taylor down and took a step forward, his face schooled into a neutral expression. “Helen, what’s happened to Karen? If she’s in trouble then we need to stop wasting time.”

“We were watching a herd of triceratops,” Helen said almost grudgingly. “A female was giving birth. Karen wanted to take some photographs. The flash on her camera went off by accident… one of them spooked and ran. We had to avoid it. Karen was… unfortunate. She fell… into a gorge. The vegetation concealed it.” If anything, the look Helen gave Frank Taylor bordered on apologetic. For her, anyway.

“What do we need to get her out?” demanded Stephen at the same time as Nick snapped, “How badly is she hurt?”

“She has a broken leg. And probably concussion,” Helen admitted, answering Nick’s question first. “She was unconscious when I left her.” To Stephen she said, “Climbing equipment, and preferably a stretcher.”

“In the back of my vehicle,” Ryan said immediately. He tightened his grip on Taylor’s shoulder. “Professor Taylor, if we’re to help your daughter we need your cooperation. Find whatever you have by way of first aid equipment. Abby, put some packs together. Food, water, anything that might be useful. One pack each, no more. Stephen, get the tranquiliser rifle and all the spare ammunition. Everything we’ve got.”

Ryan’s clipped tones galvanised everyone out of their shock. Stephen brushed wordlessly past Helen in the doorway, ignoring the half-smile she directed at him. He knew Helen well enough to be sure she wasn’t telling everything she knew, and that thought didn’t bode well for Karen Taylor.


	6. Chapter 6

The anomaly hung in the air amidst a tangle of rhododendron bushes. Dark green leaves redolent with deep red flowers framed the diamond-bright shards of time. Its beauty took Stephen’s breath away even as the sight sent a chill down his spine.

“How long will it remain open for?” Ryan demanded, directing his question to Helen.

“Long enough,” she replied. “But we can’t afford to waste any time.” Without a backward glance to see whether she was being followed or not, Helen stepped into the glittering fragments and disappeared.

Frank Taylor started to hurry after her but Nick grabbed his arm. “We stay together, Frank. Ryan goes first.” He nodded to the Special Forces captain and Ryan walked forwards, his rifle held across his chest. The anomaly swallowed him.

Nick went next, with Frank Taylor at his side. Stephen gestured to Abby and Connor and they walked through in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, carrying the lightweight stretcher that had come from the back of Ryan’s Range Rover. Stephen followed, a tranquilliser rifle slung over his shoulder with a Browning automatic a comforting weight against his leg in a borrowed thigh-holster.

Heat settled around Stephen like a stifling blanket, warmer than the English summer they had just left behind and far more humid. A riot of smells assaulted his nose: the rich loam of a ground covered by fallen leaves and other vegetation, overlaid with the heavy scent of pollen from trees laden with large, cream-coloured flowers, closely resembling magnolias.

They were surrounded by trees, some familiar, some unfamiliar but in spite of the presence of something that looked like hazel, heavy with nuts, the area still resembled the South American rainforest more than English woodland. Abby and Connor were staring around them, mouths open, eyes wide with amazed delight. Even Nick, who’d already experienced the wonders of the past more than once, looked like a kid in a fairground. At his side, Ryan – hard-eyed and alert – scanned the area for any possible threats.

Stephen took a deep breath and exhaled carefully. Then another. “We’ve got raised CO2 levels, Cutter,” he warned. He stared at Helen. “How bad is it?”

Carbon dioxide levels in the Cretaceous had varied wildly, reflecting the changing climate as the Earth moved from warm to cool to warm conditions, swinging like an erratic pendulum, possibly influenced as well by the rise and fall of volcanic activity. Stephen just hoped they weren’t about to experience anything too extreme.

Helen shrugged. “I haven’t measured it.”

“What’s your best guess?” Stephen kept his voice neutral, but they needed the information. It was about time Helen started being more forthcoming.

“Between one and two per cent. It won’t kill us, if that’s what you’re thinking, Stephen.”

“But it will mean we’ll have to work slightly harder to breathe.” He looked around at the others. “If you start to feel out of breath, try not to gasp, it won’t help. Just keep your breathing as steady as you can and don’t panic. You might start to get a slight headache. It shouldn’t get any worse than that.”

“What about Karen?” demanded Frank Taylor, an edge of desperation in his voice.

“These levels aren’t dangerous, Professor,” Stephen said trying to sound reassuring. “I just wanted to warn everyone, that’s all.” He switched his attention back to Helen. “How far do we have to go?”

She pushed a tendril of brown hair back over one ear and shouldered her small rucksack. “Not far. No more than a mile.”

Without another word, she turned and headed off through the undergrowth, with Ryan hard on her heels. Progress through the tangle of ferns and other vegetation was relatively easy, which was fortunate as none of then had a machete, although he knew Abby had managed to stow a small hand axe in her pack, as well as a couple of large kitchen knives.

Tall trees rose up like pylons, reaching for the light. Underneath their canopy, huge ferns jostled for position, some sprouting massive rounded stems, others growing straight out of the ground. The group heard the occasional rustle in the undergrowth but so far had seen nothing to cause alarm. Helen strode on confidently, but Stephen could see the constant small movements of her head from side to side, checking, searching, always alert. He was reminded forcibly that she had survived in this and other – possibly even more – hostile environments for eight years. If they wanted to stay alive as well, taking a leaf out of her book would be wise.

“Oh wow,” breathed Connor, staring around him, his eyes like saucers. “This is…”

“Amazing,” Abby finished for him, when Connor’s brain looked like it was in need of a reboot.

“Dangerous,” Stephen amended. “Connor, what should we be looking out for?”

The young man shot a look over his shoulder at Stephen, totally failing to keep a grin off his face. “Er, just about anything, really.” He saw the look of Stephen’s face and laughed somewhat breathlessly. “OK, not helping.”

“If it moves, assume it’s a threat,” Helen said from the front of the group. “I’ve seen several species of dromaeosaurs in this forest and when I came through here an hour ago there was a herd of corythosaurus. They’re herbivores, but they’re big and they spook easily. Keep moving and they’ll probably stay out of our way.”

That actually went for most things in Stephen’s experience, but it was good to hear confirmation of it from Helen. She kept up a brisk pace, not bothering to check whether everyone was still with her, although the noise of six people’s passage was no doubt enough of a clue in itself.

Something moved to his right and Stephen’s hand went automatically for the holstered Browning. Something small and grey-furred, about 20cm long, dived into a pile of leaves. It looked like an over-sized rat with a short, thick tail. Stephen relaxed and took his hand away from the pistol, but he did flip open the holster, just in case.

“So, how many trips have you made, Frank?” Nick asked Taylor who was pacing at his side, a bruise already spreading across the other man’s face.

“Three,” Taylor replied curtly, clearly not inviting further conversation.

Before Nick had a chance to press for further details, a loud crack of wood nearby made Ryan spin around, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder, searching for a target.

“Wait!” Helen’s voice rang out like a whip-crack.

A large, greenish shape with a lumbering gait was moving through the forest, no more than ten metres away. Stephen heard Connor’s sharp intake of breath and demanded, in a low voice, “What the hell is it?”

“Some sort of hadrosaur,” Connor said, wonder in his voice.

“Edmontosaurus,” said Helen.

The creature, standing half a metre or so taller than Stephen, stopped and reared up on its hind legs to pull a mouthful of leaves off a tree, wholly unconcerned by the fact that it was being watched.

“Look at the colours!” Connor stepped forward, entranced, but Abby grabbed his arm before he could go any further.

The greenish background of the creature’s hide was mottled with red, interspersed with orange bands. To Stephen’s surprise, the brightness of the colours didn’t actually stand out in a forest where brightly coloured blooms hung off all manner of trees.

Connor pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. “Professor, can I?”

Helen snorted in disdain and started walking again, but Nick said softly, “Aye, lad, but be quick about it, and no flash, remember.”

Connor relinquished his hold on the stretcher to Abby and hastily snapped two photos then moved off again, helped along by Abby’s hand on the small of his back. He had the sort of look on his face that said if he died now, he’d die happy. In contrast, Ryan had the sort of look on his face that said no one was going to die if he had anything to do with it. Nick had given up making any attempt to talk to Frank Taylor and was simply staring around him, drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of the Cretaceous. Abby seemed wholly engrossed in the plant life, but not to the exclusion of everything else, as Stephen realised when she quietly drew his attention to what looked like a long, thin, feathered head peeping out from under the fronds of a low-growing fern. He nodded and carried on walking, hand on the pistol grip again.

He noticed that the undergrowth around them showed signs of some disturbance, as though a number of large animals had passed this way recently. A glance down at the ground confirmed his suspicions: there was plenty of broken and cracked wood and trampled vegetation underfoot. A herd of something large had milled around in the vicinity, stripping the lower branches of various trees of their leaf growth and chewing on the delicate tips of tightly-curled ferns.

“How much further, Helen?” he called, keeping his voice low.

“You never were very patient, were you, Stephen?” she chided. “Not far now. We need to be careful, the triceratops herd might still be in this area and they had several youngsters. That always makes them dangerous.”

The trees were starting to thin out slightly and Stephen recognised the leaves of one, delicate and fan-shaped, growing off branches that spread out at right-angles to the tree-trunk.

“It’s a Ginkgo,” Abby said, sharing a smile with him. “We’ve got one growing in the reptile house in the zoo.”

The tree had often been described as a living fossil, but here they were seeing it in its original habitat. On impulse, Stephen reached out and plucked off a leaf, tucking it into his pocket. Abby grinned and did the same. In front of the group, Helen held up a hand, bringing the party to a halt. With a nod to Ryan, she stepped forward, moving carefully, and then dropped to her knees. Stephen realised with surprise that they’d reached the edge of some sort of gully, heavily overhung with vegetation. It was no wonder that Karen Taylor had been unaware of the hazard if she’d been fleeing from a startled triceratops.

“Karen!” Frank Taylor’s voice was loud in the silence of the forest. “Karen!”

“Be quiet!” Helen hissed. “She’s probably still unconscious. Ryan, get him out of my way!”

Ryan took hold of Taylor’s arm and propelled the man backwards. The soldier shot a meaningful look at Nick who promptly stepped up and put a hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Frank, let them work.”

Taylor sucked in a deep breath and nodded. His eyes held Ryan’s and he pleaded, “Save my daughter.”

The soldier nodded and dropped to his knees next to Helen, staring down into the gully. He turned around and motioned Stephen forward. “You’ve done some climbing?”

“Yes.” Stephen dropped to the ground next to Ryan and brushed aside some of the vegetation to get an idea of what they were dealing with. Below them he could hear the sound of water, flowing over a series of drops and cascades in a deep, narrow gully. Some 15 metres down, sprawled on a flat slab lay Karen Taylor, on her back, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, a smear of blood on her face and more on the rock beneath her. Her left arm was flung out sideways, the other curled over her stomach, fingers slightly clenched. At that distance, Stephen couldn’t actually tell whether she was alive or dead.

He stared down at the overgrown sides of the gully. There was a slight overhang at the top and it looked a nasty climb, one that he wasn’t sure he’d fancy tackling without the proper gear. “What equipment have we got?” he asked Ryan.

“Enough,” the soldier said, slipping his pack off his shoulders and emptying the contents onto the ground. “There’s a full set of abseiling and prusiking kit, two 30-metre ropes, three pulleys, ten karabiners and a load of slings. That should do it.”

Without wasting any time, Stephen handed the tranquilliser rifle and the waist-pack containing the spare darts to Abby, then unfastened the leg-holster that held the Browning automatic and gave that to Nick, along with two spare magazines. He then started kitting up with somewhat less lethal gear, adjusting the harness to fit and sorting through the rest of the equipment while Ryan found a suitable tree and began rigging a rope for Stephen’s descent.

Without a word, Helen rummaged through the slings, found one the length she needed and promptly fashioned a simple, but effective harness, joined together with a karabiner. “I’m going down with you.”

Stephen simply nodded and carried on getting ready. He knew that Helen had done a lot of climbing when she’d been a student and he wasn’t about to argue with her. He also wasn’t going to insult her by offering her the better kit. From what he remembered, she was almost certainly a more competent climber than he was. While they were making their own preparations, Abby was consolidating the contents of their first aid kits, putting together all their bandages and anything else that might be useful into one pack. Stephen took it from her with a small smile of thanks.

“Ready when you are,” Ryan said, giving the rope one last tug.

Stephen threaded it through the bars of the rack that he’d fastened to his harness by a karabiner. It was a long, hooped piece of metal with a series of bars through which the rope would run, slowing his rate of descent, and he would be able to control that even further by lifting or lowering the rope, lowering it to slow his downward progress, lifting it to go faster. Helen was busy manufacturing a similar device from a combination of two karabiners.

He leaned back, testing his weight against the rope and then nodded to Ryan. “Let Helen come next, then send the stretcher down on the rope, along with the first aid kit.”

“Fine,” Ryan acknowledged. “I’ll get the other rope rigged through the pulley to bring the stretcher back up. We’ll haul her up head first, there’s too much bloody vegetation to do it horizontally. There’s an inbuilt harness with a crotch strap on the stretcher.”

Stephen lowered himself carefully over the edge, trying not to dislodge any rocks that might fall and do Karen Taylor any more damage. With his weight on the harness and his feet braced against the vertical side of the gully, Stephen started his descent, keeping it slow and steady, the rope running through his fingers. Gloves would have been better, but he didn’t have any, so he’d just have to make sure he went slowly enough to avoid friction burns. The rack was a good device and he’d threaded all six bars for a deliberately slow descent.

As soon as his feet touched the slab, he crouched down to give himself some slack on the rope, calling, “Down!” as he landed on his feet. He quickly unthreaded the rope, stepped back, being careful of his footing on the damp rock, and yelled, “Rope free!” Without waiting to watch Helen’s descent, Stephen quickly knelt by Karen Taylor’s side, checking her breathing. Her father was waiting at the top of the gully, desperate for news of his daughter’s condition.

Stephen just hoped he’d be able to give the man some good news.


	7. Chapter 7

Karen Taylor was alive. Stephen closed his eyes in relief for a moment and then relayed that information to her father and the others waiting anxiously at the top of the gully.

The side of her face was grazed and cut, and she was bleeding sluggishly from a scalp wound. Stephen felt her skull carefully. There were no obvious indentations, although she was very pale and the blood stood out starkly on her skin, but there was no discharge from her nose, mouth or ears. Stephen did his best to dredge up information from the various first aid courses he’d attended, including one on wilderness medical techniques, but for a moment the sight of the young woman’s white, blood-stained face threatened his composure more than he’d expected.

A yell of “Down!” followed almost immediately by “Rope free!” signified Helen’s arrival at the bottom of the gully. A moment later, he felt her hand on his shoulder and she asked quietly, “How bad?”

He blinked and tried to shake himself out of the grip of mental paralysis. “She’s breathing. I can’t see any skull depressions.” He glanced down her body, wincing at the angle of the woman’s leg. “That’s not going to be easy to deal with.”

She nodded, and gripped his shoulder for a moment, before Ryan’s cry of “Below!” warned them that the stretcher and the rucksack containing the first aid kit were about to be lowered down to them. Helen went to deal with that, leaving Stephen to continue his checks. He’d already done the standard ABC check. Her airways were clear, she was breathing and she had circulation. Regardless of any damage to her head, neck or back, she had to be moved. They had no choice about that. Stephen had no idea how long the anomaly would remain open, but importing a full crew of paramedics into the Cretaceous simply wasn’t an option. It was their job to get her back to civilisation, which was what they had to concentrate on. Someone else would have to take over after that, but for that to happen, they would have to return her to the 21st century.

Helen detached the stretcher and the small rucksack from the rope and hurried back to Stephen’s side. She pulled out an absorbent pad out from one of the first aid kits Abby had packed and handed it to him together with some surgical tape. “Use that for her head,” she instructed.

While Stephen was carefully pressing the pad to the woman’s head to stop the bleeding and fixing it in place with some tape, Helen pulled a large knife out of a sheath on her belt and used it to slit Karen Taylor’s trousers from ankle to thigh on her injured leg.

“Shit,” she said quietly.

Stephen glanced down. The leg was clearly broken below the knee, which accounted for the twisted angle they’d seen even from the top of the gully. There was also a lot of swelling above the knee as well, but there was no bone protruding through the skin and no bleeding.

“Do we straighten it?” he asked.

Helen stared down at the limb and then shook her head. “There’s too much risk of further damage. We need to immobilise it and then get her on the stretcher.”

Neither of those things was going to be easy. Stephen tried to breathe slowly and calmly. He could feel a slight headache starting to dull his reactions, the effects of the elevated CO2 levels in the air.

“We need to lift the broken leg and get it as close as we can to the other,” Helen said, equally calmly, but Stephen saw the slight tremor in her hands as she laid them on the bare flesh of the injured woman’s lower leg. “We’ll splint them together using the bandages.”

He put his hands tentatively on Karen’s leg, anxious not to cause further injury. Helen ran her fingers over the swollen, bruised skin, trying to get some idea of the nature of the injury, then she carefully lifted the twisted limb and eased it over to her other leg.

Karen Taylor groaned and tried to move.

“It’s OK,” Stephen said, gently pressing down on her shoulders to stop her moving until Helen leaned back, dashed the sweat from her forehead and nodded. He turned to the injured woman, intending to offer reassurance, but she seemed to have lapsed back into unconsciousness. “Karen?” She didn’t react to his voice. He checked her breathing and pulse, but there had been no change. “Karen, it’s Stephen Hart, Helen’s with me. We’re going to get you out of here.”

There was still no reaction from her.

Helen fished out some crepe bandages from the rucksack and with Stephen’s assistance she wound the bandages around Karen’s legs in three places: thighs, knees and ankles. Fortunately, the other woman remained motionless throughout, but Stephen did notice her eyes starting to flutter.

“Stephen, sit-rep?” Ryan called, from above them. The soldier’s voice held a note of urgency.

Stephen looked up and saw Ryan leaning over the edge. “We’re about to get her on the stretcher. Have you got a problem up there?”

“Maybe.” Ryan’s voice was guarded. “We can hear something moving in the bushes. No visual yet, but it sounds big.” It was obvious he wanted them to hurry up, but the soldier was too much of a professional to try to rush them.

“We’ll be as quick as we can,” Stephen offered. He met Helen’s eyes. “What are the chances of it being something harmless?”

She laughed humourlessly. “It’s the Cretaceous, Stephen. Come on, let’s get this done. Take your tee-shirt off. We’ll need something to pad around her neck.”

Stephen quickly stripped off his shirt so they could use the tee-shirt he was wearing underneath it. Helen manoeuvred the lightweight stretcher into position and between them they got Karen settled and strapped into position, the rolled up tee-shirt pressed into service forming a pad around the back of her neck and more bandages holding her head in position against the stretcher to prevent it lolling around on the ascent of the cliff. In addition, they buckled the in-built harness in place around her pelvis to take the strain once the stretcher was hauled upright. Stephen just hoped she hadn’t sustained any damage they couldn’t see, but even if she had, there was nothing they could do about it. They had to get her out and Ryan was right – with the amount of vegetation overhanging the gully, a horizontal haul simply wasn’t practical.

A series of straps held the injured woman in place from head to foot. Stephen checked and double-checked these before attaching the rope to the head of the stretcher and fastening the karabiner.

“OK, she’s ready. I’ll go up next to her on the other rope and then send the prusiking kit back down to you.” He was referring to the specialised items of climbing equipment that would allow each of them to ascend the rope.

Helen nodded and together they moved the stretcher until it was directly beneath Ryan and the others. Stephen clipped himself onto the rope at two places, firstly through an ascending device attached to his sit-harness and secondly to something called a jammer on his chest harness. Both devices would allow the rope to run freely through them in an upwards direction, but then when he placed his weight onto them, metal teeth would grip the rope and prevent him sliding back down the rope. Two separate foot-loops made of short lengths of rope attached to the belt part of his harness would allow him to take his weight on his feet as he moved up the rope in a series of sit-stand movements. The foot-loops were a bit short for him as he topped Ryan by nearly two inches in height, but they’d do. It was better that way round than trying to use loops designed for someone taller than him.

“Ryan! Take up slack on the stretcher. We need to get her vertical then I’ll start coming up!”

“OK.” The soldier’s voice was as calm as ever, but Stephen could now hear movement in the forest above him and the murmur of voices. Something was going on.

Supported by Stephen and Helen, the stretcher was moved into an upright position and they quickly checked to ensure that the harness was taking Karen’s weight.

“Coming up!” Stephen called. He sat down in the harness and pushed his hand-jammer upwards. The loops of rope attached to it drew his feet upwards. He then stood up in the foot loops, letting the rope run freely through the other piece of metal at his chest. The rope stretched slightly and he didn’t actually move off the ground, but after repeating the manoeuvre three times, he started to make progress up the rope. The trick was to push upwards using your feet, not to try to drag yourself up the rope by pulling on the handle of the hand-jammer, but it took several attempts for Stephen to find the right rhythm. It was a couple of years since he’d done this. When he was about three metres above the rock slab, he told Ryan to start taking up the stretcher.

As Karen Taylor was hauled steadily upwards, Stephen moved up alongside her, pushing aside the trailing branches from a tree of unknown type, stopping vegetation from snagging on the stretcher and generally trying to aid its progress. He could still hear the murmur of voices, and the noises in the undergrowth that he’d heard before were louder now. The hauling stopped for a moment and the stretcher swung slightly.

“Keep hauling!” It was Ryan’s voice, and the note of urgency was even more pronounced now. “Abby, cover me!”

Stephen’s breath caught in his throat and he knew that in a moment he’d hear shots.

A three-round burst from Ryan’s M4 assault rifle shattered the relative silence of the forest, followed a second later by the deeper sound of the Browning automatic, held, presumably, in Nick’s capable but reluctant hands. The noise of the gunfire was followed by a sudden bellow and the sound of something large crashing through the ferns.

The stretcher jerked and started up again, slightly more slowly this time, presumably lacking Ryan’s greater strength on the rope. Stephen immediately followed. The hardest part of this would be getting the unconscious woman over the lip. When they reached that stage, Stephen did his best to assist from below, hanging off the rope with the whole of his weight on the harness around his waist and thighs as he used both hands to lift and guide the stretcher. Then it was slithering away from him, sliding over the broken fern leaves. A lump of rock was detached by its passage and Stephen called a warning to Helen just as another burst of gunfire broke out.

He heard someone – possibly Connor – yelling, “Ryan, over there!”

By now Stephen had reached the lip himself and was too busy pulling himself over the edge to worry about what was going on. Ryan, Nick and Abby all had guns and the soldier wasn’t the only one who knew how to use firearms. While Nick might not approve of the use of lethal force against any creature, in a situation like this he would not hesitate to save a human life. As Stephen was detaching himself from the rope and stripping off the climbing gear to send back down to Helen, he did his best to take in what was happening around him.

Frank Taylor was on his knees next to the stretcher, his hands cradling his daughter’s face. Tears were running down the man’s face and he was talking to her frantically, calling her name over and over again.

A little way ahead of the rest of the group, Ryan was down on one knee, the M4 to his shoulder, facing a fully-grown triceratops. The creature was just standing there, its huge frilled head swinging slowly from side to side, but it seemed unharmed. Off to one side, Abby was hacking hard at the base of an enormous fern. A moment later she succeeded in detaching one and throwing it to Nick before she started to hack at another.

Nick flicked the safety catch on and tossed the Browning to Stephen before grabbing the fern frond at its base. He stepped up to Ryan’s side and started to wave the greenery in the creature’s face. To Stephen’s amazement, it took a pace backwards, still swinging its head. He dragged his attention away from what the others were doing and quickly bundled the climbing gear back into the bag Ryan had emptied it out of, made a loop in the rope and attached the bag to it with a karabiner and tossed it over the edge, calling, “Kit coming down!” to Helen.

A roar that definitely hadn’t come from the throat of something that dined solely on vegetation made the triceratops shuffle in obvious nervousness. Nick took advantage of that and stepped forward, waving the fern frond again. Abby stepped up to his side, doing the same.

“Fire over its head,” she ordered Ryan, her voice calm, despite their situation. “We need to spook it away from us.”

Ryan nodded and a moment later, another three-round burst cut a swathe through the branches over their heads, sending leaves and chips of bark flying. The muzzle-flash from his M4 probably did as much, if not more, to frighten the creature as the noise. It tossed its head and snorted. Nick and Abby pressed home their advantage, and jumped forward in unison, yelling loudly.

The triceratops shuffled backwards and let out a noise like a startled cow, a large pink tongue curling inside the beaked mouth. It tossed its head and Stephen thought that the neck-frill was colouring up even more, with dark red patches deepening and seeming to expand. Abby flapped the fern frond right in its face and Stephen let go of the rope that he was paying out through his hands and jumped up to join them, flapping his arms and joining in the yelling. The huge ceratopsian snorted again and then turned to lumber off through the undergrowth, moving surprisingly fast for such a bulky creature.

Abby lowered the fern she’d been waving around madly and grinned widely. “We did it!”

Connor threw her a high-five. “Did you see what was happening to its frill?” he demanded, sounding almost as excited as Abby. “It’s not just for a mating display, it was trying to look more threatening!”

Before anyone had chance to reply, another load roar sounded all too close to them and the sharp crack of a tree branch was equally ominous.

“We need to move!” Ryan ordered. “Stephen, can you find your way back to the anomaly? Take point, I’ll wait for Helen and then bring up the rear.”

Stephen shook his head and gestured to the edge of the gully. “No, you need to stay with the others. I’ll wait, the rest of you move off. Abby can take point. We’ll catch you up.”

Ryan gave him an appraising look and then nodded.

Nick stepped forward, undoing the straps of the thigh-holster which held the Browning. “Stephen…”

“I know what I’m doing, Cutter. Trust me. You and Taylor need to carry the stretcher. Connor will help you. Abby’s got the tranq rifle and she can find her way back. Now go!”

Nick hesitated for a moment, clearly wanting to argue but the sound of something large crashing towards them was the deciding factor. He knew as well as Stephen did that their highest priority had to be getting the injured woman on the stretcher to safety. He quickly undid the straps of the webbing holster and handed it over to Stephen then gave him a swift kiss on the lips, murmured, “Be careful,” and turned to grab the rear end of the stretcher. Frank Taylor took up position at the front and they got ready to move off.

Abby received a nod from Ryan and, shouldering the tranquiliser rifle, she moved to the head of the group and started off back the way they’d come with Connor at her side, clutching the small axe Abby had used to cut the fern branch in one hand and his own fern in the other. Abby still carried a large frond as well.

“Don’t hang around,” Ryan told Stephen, before the soldier moved off after them. “I don’t like the sound of whatever the hell is making that noise.”

Right on cue, another roar – followed almost immediately by a rumbling bellow – overrode all other noises. Something was hunting, and Stephen really didn’t want to meet anything big enough and nasty enough to prey on something the size of the triceratops they’d just encountered. There really wasn’t much that came into that category, and he didn’t want to run up against any of them armed with nothing more than a 9mm pistol. Not that Ryan’s rifle would be that much use either. The 5.56mm ammunition would have about as much effect as poking a hot wire through a creature the size of the triceratops and, unless a vital organ was hit immediately, it would take a lot of bullets to bring down anything really large. And he didn’t need Connor’s level of knowledge of prehistoric creatures to know that one of the most likely candidates for dinosaur of the day was something that began with a T and ended in rex.

He’d seen elephants hunted by poachers with Russian AK-47 assault rifles but he’d also seen the trampled body of one man who had come off the worst in a close encounter with his intended prey and he was bloody sure that an apex predator in the Cretaceous would be more than a match for one man and a rifle, unless that man was either very good or very lucky. Or preferably both.

From the sounds coming from the forest, a battle of some sort had been joined. Ferns were shaking and rustling, even the tops of some trees were swaying, and the noises he could hear sounded like two pit-bull terriers the size of African elephants engaged in a fight to the death.

Stephen leaned over the edge of the gully and was relieved to see that Helen had got herself kitted up and was now starting on the ascent. She found a rhythm almost instantly, coming up the rope in a series of smooth, fast, sit-stand movements, her face set in a mask of concentration, but when she looked up, Stephen could see the sweat standing out on her forehead and a flicker of something that he recognised as fear in her eyes.

There was nothing he could do from above to help her. He turned around to face the trees, the sounds of two huge animals locked in their struggle filling his ears. The cream flowers of a large magnolia tree shook and petals fell to the ground. Stephen’s hand went for his pistol and he took up a two-handed shooting stance, knees slightly bent. Something was coming out of the undergrowth, moving fast, brushing aside anything in its path.

The creature that emerged stood almost two metres high at the shoulder. A shoulder that was covered in thick, heavily armoured plates, which ran down the beast’s back to a club-like tail which was thrashing from side to side like an angry cat’s, except a cat’s tail wasn’t capable of taking chunks out of anything it hit. A series of vicious-looking spikes pointed diagonally forward from its squat forelegs, while others stuck out sideways. It looked like some kind of ankylosaurus.

Stephen stood stock-still. The creature was moving away from something, and if he stayed out of its path, the chances were that it would simply avoid him. A large, turtle-like head turned in his direction and Stephen’s hopes started to fall. It lumbered forward, moving surprisingly quickly for its bulk, avoiding Stephen and simply heading away from the commotion still coming from the cover of the trees. Stephen started to exhale with relief and then his breath caught in his throat. The creature was running straight for the climbing rope that stretched from a tall pine tree to the lip of the gully – and Helen was dangling from the same rope.

He jumped forward. Stephen had no clear idea of what he intended to do and, a moment later, it was too late. The ankylosaur ran straight into the rope. The dinosaur was too squat and low to the ground to be brought down by the obstacle. It simply kept running. The rope jerked on the tree and Stephen expected to see it snap. Then the ankylosaur was gone, barrelling away like a gigantic, armoured pig.

And the rope was unbroken.

Stephen shoved the Browning back into its holster and scrambled to the edge of the gully. “Helen!”

She hung about three metres below the overhang, spinning on the rope, her head down, arms loose, both feet dangling free, jolted out of their rope loops. Stephen had a horrible feeling she’d been jerked up high enough to ram her head against the rock overhang, cracking her skull and possibly even breaking her neck. By himself, he knew he had no way of hauling her weight back up to the lip. It might work in films, but he didn’t have the scriptwriter on his side and he’d done enough climbing to know that unless he could find some means of re-rigging the rope so he could use a pulley to assist him, he didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of getting her the rest of the way up the small cliff.

“Helen!”

Her body continued to swing on the rope like a broken puppet.


	8. Chapter 8

“Helen!” Stephen didn’t know whether the sound of his voice would attract any unwanted attention from the local wildlife, nor did he care. His priority was the woman who’d once – briefly – been his lover.

The rucksack containing the rest of the climbing gear was next to him on the ground and the rope that had been used to haul Karen Taylor out of the small gorge was still rigged through the pulley, attached to a tree by a tape sling. Stephen grabbed another of the slings and started to do what Helen had done earlier and fashion a harness for himself, twisting it into two large loops that he then stepped through and fastened together with one of the karabiners. He needed to get down to Helen and he needed to get her the rest of the way up the rope. His brain was whirling only just short of panic. He knew that if Ryan had been with him, the Special Forces captain would have known exactly what to do and how to do it, but Stephen hadn’t done any climbing in the last few years and he was desperately trying to dredge up memories of the rescue course he’d once attended.

The key to it was the pulleys, he was certain of that. They would enable him to use his own weight to help him lift Helen. Unsettling noises were still coming from the forest and Stephen expected another creature to flee the conflict at any minute. He had to get Helen to safety before that happened. Working as quickly as he could, Stephen pulled a long loop of rope through the pulley and secured the end to another tree. He pulled the loop across the now-trampled small ferns and fed it down the steep side of the gully to where Helen still dangled from the other rope, held upright by her chest harness, her head lolling forward. He could see blood in her hair, which had fallen forward shrouding her face.

He now had the rope in the shape of a letter S turned sideways, with a long loop of rope resembling the first part of the letter trailing down to the injured woman. Stephen wound two of the strands of rope through the karabiners fastened to his makeshift harness. The third section of rope, forming the last part of the sideways S-shape, dangled over the edge of the small cliff and he was pleased to see it was easily long enough to hang several metres past Helen’s body. Stephen hastily attached the other two pulleys, several more karabiners, and the rest of the slings to his belt. It was the first time he’d ever attempted anything like this apart from a practice scenario, and certainly not while carrying a pistol and listening to the sounds of a flesh-eating Cretaceous cabaret taking place in the undergrowth, but there was a first time for everything…

As Stephen lowered himself over the edge, his heart already hammering in his chest, he heard a groan from below him. Moving as quickly as he dared, Stephen started to abseil down the doubled rope. Helen was alive, but he had no idea how badly injured she was.

He was by her side in a matter of minutes, dangling three metres below the lip of the gully, doing his best to lock off the rope by winding it around the karabiners attached to his tape-harness to prevent himself sliding down any further.

“Helen!”

She groaned again and tried to move her head.

Stephen reached out and put his hand gently under her chin. “Helen?”

She stared at him, eyes blank for a moment. “What…”

“Something big used the rope as a trip-wire. You got dragged up and hit the overhang.”

“Sh...it,” Helen murmured, her lips twitching slightly. “Shit… happens.”

“What hurts?” While he was talking, Stephen was using one of the tape slings to attach himself to Helen and one of the karabiners to clip one of the pulleys to her sit-harness before grabbing the dangling loop of rope and feeding it through the pulley. He debated trying to detach her kit to use it himself, but dismissed the idea. If anything went wrong on their ascent, she might well need it.

She watched what he was doing with a puzzled expression on her face, blinking rapidly in what Stephen assumed was an attempt to clear her head. Helen lifted her right hand and tried to brush her hair back from her face. “Stephen?”

“Yes, it’s me. Tell me what hurts, Helen.”

“Head…”

He’d reached the tricky part of the rescue now. He had to transfer his weight to the third strand of the rope, the one he hadn’t abseiled down on, by creating two improvised prusiking devices just from two tape slings and two more karabiners. And here’s one I made earlier. It was like a long ago edition of Blue Peter, only without the washing up bottles and sticky-backed plastic. And with added dinosaurs.

“Anything else?” Stephen asked. The part of his mind that was keeping him talking to Helen seemed to be wholly detached from the part that was still calling up long-forgotten climbing techniques.

“Sh…oulder. Left shoulder.”

“OK, I’ll take a look when we get you up top.”

While he spoke, Stephen was making prusik knots – an improvised means of climbing a rope – by winding one end of the shorter tape slings around the rope and through a karabiner, to act as a makeshift handle, and attaching the other end to his tape harness. He did the same with one of the longer slings to make a foot-loop. These two knots around the rope would take the place of the two devices he’d been using earlier. It was crude, and the climb back up the rope would be difficult, but it was possible. Once both tape slings were attached to the third strand of rope, Stephen took a deep breath and detached himself totally from the two strands he’d abseiled down.

The pair of them swung alarmingly for a moment and Stephen’s prusik knots stared to slip. His heart rate spiked and for a moment he fully expected to keep sliding further down the rope, but a second later the knots tightened and he came to a halt.

“Good boy,” Helen panted. “Top of the class…”

Stephen grinned, adrenaline coursing through his system. This was going to work. All he had to do was keep calm. He trusted his weight wholly to the bottom knot and slackened the top one off slightly, using the karabiner handle to slide the top knot up the rope, drawing the foot that was resting in the tape loop up with it, bending his knee. He tightened the upper knot as much as possible and let it take his weight before he worked at the lower knot with his fingers to slacken it off. Stephen then did his best to stand up in the foot-loop, sliding the loosened lower knot up the rope at the same time.

As Stephen progressed up the third strand of rope, it dragged the rest of the rope through the pulley and his weight started shifting Helen upwards in the loop formed by the other two sections of rope as it shortened. It was hard work, bloody hard work, and his hands and shoulders were soon screaming with the effort of slackening off the knots and then shoving them up the rope. But they were moving steadily upwards as Helen was pulled up her own rope by the forces exerted on the other one running through the pulley at her waist.

Inch by tortuous inch they moved on upwards. Stephen had no idea how long the manoeuvre was taking and he couldn’t allow himself to think of that, nor could he allow the roars and bellows still coming from the forest to distract him.

“T. rex usually wins,” Helen gasped, clearly conscious of the same noises he’d been trying to ignore.

“Will it leave us alone if it does?” he asked, slackening a knot, shoving it up, dragging his foot with it and then pressing down in the foot-loop, repeating the same movement over and over again until he was grimacing from pain. Pain in his cramped fingers, pain in his thighs where the narrow tape was starting to cut into his flesh, pain in his tense shoulders.

“Plenty of meat on a triceratops.”

To his relief she was sounding more lucid now. Stephen looked up. They were only half a metre from the lip of the gully. Another few repeats of pushing up the knots and he’d be able to haul himself over the ledge, dragging Helen with him. The colour had started to come back into her face and, apart from the fact that her left arm appeared to be still hanging limply at her side, she was at least able to help herself with her right arm. It was better than Stephen had expected when he’d lowered himself over the edge.

The final metre seemed interminable, but eventually he was able to haul himself over the edge with Helen following him in an ungainly sprawl, a limp tangle of limbs and rope. Stephen lay there like a beached whale, panting, sweating and shaking with effort, unable to move. If something came at them out of the forest now, they’d be stuffed. He doubted he’d even be able to get the Browning out of its holster, let alone aim and fire it. Stephen closed his eyes and let himself go limp for a moment.

“Thank you.” Helen’s voice was quiet, but sounded steady.

Stephen opened his eyes and managed to dredge up a smile from somewhere. They were both alive, they were out of the gully and so far it didn’t look like anything was immediately trying to eat them. In fact, from the noises he could hear from amongst the trees, it sounded like Helen’s prediction had been accurate. A carnivore of some sort was enjoying a meal. And its table manners left a lot to be desired.

With leaden fingers, Stephen started to detach himself from the rope and then do the same for Helen. She had rolled onto her back, eyes closed and she was breathing heavily, but she was also conscious and capable of movement. From what Stephen could work out, her left shoulder had probably taken the brunt of the impact with the rock wall, and Helen’s head had simply taken a glancing blow from the slight overhang. At least she’d escaped the broken neck that had been his first fear.

Stephen rolled over and came to his knees. They couldn’t afford to waste any more time. “Can you walk?”

“I can try.”

“Good, because I sure as hell can’t carry you back to the anomaly.” Stephen got to his feet and held down a hand. Helen grasped it firmly with her right hand and allowed Stephen to help her upright. She swayed and closed her eyes against what Stephen suspected was a wave of nausea. He slipped an arm around her waist. “Come on; let’s start moving before anything else joins the party.”

“The forest’s going to be crawling with scavengers hoping to be first in line for a free meal.”

“Not very reassuring,” he commented as together they moved off through the forest, following the trail of broken vegetation left behind by the passage of Nick and the others.

“Tell it like it is,” she gasped.

“You always did that,” he commented wryly, remembering the day she’d broken off their affair because, in her words, if she’d wanted a puppy, she’d have gone to the RSPCA. From that he’d worked out that telling her he loved her hadn’t exactly been a good move.

Helen laughed, although it sounded more like a croak. “Poor Stephen. I hope Nick treats you better than I did.”

He sighed. “Yes, he does. We’re history, Helen, let’s keep it that way and concentrate on staying alive, shall we? You’ve been here with Taylor and his daughter, so tell me what I need to know.”

“Predators. Attracted by the herd.” She’d found a rhythm now, a lurching run. It looked like she’d also banged an ankle against the side of the gulley, but Helen hadn’t mentioned it and so neither did he. “A female gave birth here earlier. That’s what we were watching. One of the bulls must have been guarding the calf. Sounds like something took it down.”

“Nick and the others scared one off. Those were the shots you heard.”

“They can be skittish,” she acknowledged. “If a T. rex has taken a bull down there’ll be juveniles and others hoping for scraps. Like lions and hyenas. Stay alert.”

“I wasn’t planning on taking a nap,” he retorted.

They were making better progress than he’d initially hoped, but it was clear that Helen would need to stop for a proper rest soon. She’d already had to stop once to be sick. Her face was set in a mask of pain and she was stumbling more often than he was comfortable with. He knew she shouldn’t be exerting herself this much so quickly after a period of unconsciousness, however short, but they didn’t exactly have a lot of choice in the matter.

After 15 minutes, she sank to her knees, leaning on the trunk of a fallen tree, breathing hard. Stephen stayed on his feet, staring around him into the profusion of ferns and flowering shrubs. Where only a short time ago he’d seen beauty, now all he saw was menace. A rustle nearby was enough to make his hand fly to the Browning.

Helen stared around her. “If you can bring something down, do it. They’re like sharks, if there’s a pack, it’ll distract them from us.”

“A pack of what?”

She shrugged and then winced at the pain from her injured shoulder. “Dromaeosaurs. Maybe troodon. Fast and vicious.”

“And you brought Karen Taylor here?” His voice rose in incredulity.

“We all make mistakes, Stephen.” Her eyes met his, but the look in them didn’t bear out the challenge in her voice. “I wasn’t expecting her to run over a cliff, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to end up like this. They normally stay away, but they can sense weakness and smell the blood.”

He pulled a bottle of water out of his pack. “Drink this and then we need to move.” As Stephen turned to Helen to hand her the bottle, a flash of bright colour, blue and red, came out of the undergrowth. Stephen spun around, trying to bring the pistol to bear on whatever it was, without endangering Helen. A sharp pain ripped into his forearm and the water bottle fell from his hand. Something the size of a large turkey with a narrow head and a mouth full of sharp teeth was hanging off his arm. Stephen clubbed at it with the Browning and it fell back, squawking.

At his side, Helen grabbed a fallen branch and swung it, one-handed, at the creature. The wood was rotten, but it connected with Stephen’s attacker hard enough to prevent it launching itself at him again and gave him the chance to put a bullet in the middle of its body. The pistol shot cracked loudly and Stephen saw another flash of colour in the undergrowth, but this time moving away from them.

Helen struggled to her feet. “Come on. That’ll give them something else to concentrate on for a few minutes.

Stephen stared down at his right forearm. The material of his long-sleeved tee-shirt was ripped and his arm looked like it had been savaged by a dog. It hurt like hell, but he shot handguns left-handed rather than right, so it could have been worse. Helen reached down and grabbed the water-bottle, taking a quick swig before shoving the bottle into a pocket and moving off again.

Following the trail left by Nick and the others wasn’t difficult. There were trampled and broken ferns everywhere and someone had used the small hand axe to cut notches on tree trunks at frequent intervals to mark their passage. She’d obviously guessed they wouldn’t have much time for the niceties of following a trail and Stephen was grateful for the girl’s quick thinking and level head in a crisis.

He could hear rustling in the bushes all around them now. It was as though the whole forest had suddenly come alive with threats on all sides. A deep-throated growl sounded somewhere to their left followed by a chittering noise and a shriek, but he couldn’t work out whether it was the shriek of a hunter or its prey. They kept moving, breath coming in harsh pants, no time or energy now for talking. Stephen’s forearm throbbed and he could feel blood trickling sluggishly down to his hand. He was leaving a trail a mile wide for any predator to follow, but stopping to bandage the wound would leave them unacceptably exposed. Their best chance was to press on.

A loud crack of breaking wood made Stephen hesitate for a moment and turn. He could see ferns waving and parting as something large thrust its way through the undergrowth. Without even waiting for a visual confirmation of his fears, Stephen brought the pistol to bear and fired twice into the lush vegetation before turning and hurrying on. A dull, wet sound had been confirmation that his bullets had struck their target, but how much damage they’d done, Stephen had no idea. A roar told him that whatever it was he’d hit was still alive and that it wasn’t happy. He had no intention of hanging around long enough to apologise. In his opinion, the only endangered species in that forest was Homo sapiens sapiens.

He turned again and sprinted after Helen. She had simply kept going. She was slower than he was and catching her up wasn’t difficult, but he noticed she now had her long knife clutched firmly in her right hand.

“You must have had a fun eight years,” he gasped as he drew level with her.

“Not always like this,” Helen panted, with the ghost of a grin.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Not tempted to join me, Stephen?”

He glanced at her, wondering for a moment if she was serious, but her dark eyes held the same amused mockery he recognised from so long ago. He smiled, realising in the heady rush of blood and adrenaline that she no longer held the power to wound him.

Helen’s own smile faltered for a moment and the mockery left her eyes. “I missed my chance, didn’t I?”

He was saved the need to reply by a roar that would have stopped a charging triceratops in its tracks. Something that liked the smell of blood was on their trail, Stephen had no doubt about that, and whatever it was they stood no chance of outrunning it, but that didn’t mean they would simply stop trying. Without stopping to discuss the matter, both of them redoubled their efforts. The adrenaline spike wouldn’t last long, but at that moment it was enough to overcome pain and fatigue and keep them moving.

Stephen stared around him, trying to find some sort of marker that would give him an idea of where they were in relation to the anomaly. A massive tree fern rose up a few metres away from them. Connor had identified it in passing as a tempskya. Its huge bole was actually made up of a large number of stems surrounded by a thick mat of fibrous roots. The upper part of the trunk was covered with leaves, all produced from the side of the stems rather than forming from a single crown like most of the other ferns they’d seen. He remembered this tree, its sheer size – all six metres of it – marked it out from the others they’d passed. They were no more than a couple of hundred metres from the anomaly.

In front of him, Helen came to an abrupt halt. A massively-jawed head loomed out of the foliage, staring at her out of small eyes set deep in the leathery grey-green skin of its skull. The predator waved its head, clearly scenting the air. A heavy tread on two hugely powerful legs brought it fully into view. It was easily double their height, but Stephen was sure that they were facing something that was still only a juvenile. If its parents had any sort of nurturing instinct, this specimen would be beyond that now. Not adult enough to be first in line for meat, even if a food source was plentiful, but big enough to have graduated from scavenging corpses to bringing down its own prey.

The small forearms waved in a way that Stephen had always thought must have looked faintly ridiculous, but now, faced with the progeny of one of the fiercest hunters ever to walk the earth, he certainly didn’t feel like laughing. It was going to charge them and a 9mm bullet wasn’t going to do a damn thing to slow it down, not even if he managed to get in a lucky shot. He thought for a moment of trying to blind the creature, but an eye, even an eye as big as the ones that were currently staring at Helen still presented a small target, and his chance of getting in a killing shot to the brain through such a massive skull was negligible.

He could practically hear Connor inside his head, telling him to stay still, but he didn’t need the script of a Jurassic Park film for instruction. He knew – they both knew – that movement would galvanise it to instant and deadly action, like a cat hunting a mouse.

The young Tyrannosaurus blew a noisy breath out through its nostrils, its jaws open, long, serrated teeth closely packed into a mouth easily as long as Stephen’s arm. Its breath stank, the rank, carrion smell gusting in the heavy Cretaceous heat.

“I’m going to fire into its mouth,” he said as calmly as he could, conscious of fear trailing its icy fingers through the sweat standing out on his body. It would be able to smell his fear, as strongly, no doubt, as it could smell the blood coating the ripped flesh of his forearm. It was possibly only the strangeness of their smell that was causing any uncertainly in the predator at all. “When I do, run like hell and don’t wait for me.”

“You’re a brave man, Stephen.” And for once, Helen’s words were devoid of any mockery.

“Tell Nick I love him.”

He wanted to say more, but there was no time left.


	9. Chapter 9

“Tell Nick I love him.”

Stephen’s own words echoed in his ears as he lifted the Browning automatic, aiming for the gaping jaws of the juvenile tyrannosaurus rex. He was fully intending to empty the entire clip into it if necessary. He had two spare magazines left, but if his first shots failed to take the creature down, he very much doubted he’d get the chance to reload.

The sudden crack of wood underfoot dragged the tyrannosaur’s attention away from them. Stephen heard the rustle in the undergrowth that indicated something moving in their direction. Something than moved on two feet. Hopefully, something human.

Helen grinned. “Tell him yourself. You’re a man, you need to practise those three little words, Stephen. Don’t let my reaction put you off. That was years ago, and it’s a well-known fact that I’m a cold-hearted bitch.” She hefted the long knife in her hand and yelled, “Over here and we’ve got company!”

The creature lunged. Helen threw herself to one side, avoiding the slash of yellow teeth by no more than centimetres. She fell back through a tangle of flower-laden branches, rich red petals falling around her like flakes of blood. Stephen snapped off a shot from the pistol and blood flowered on the creature’s powerful neck. The tyrannosaurus roared, dispelling any notion that its central nervous system was any less rapid than that of more modern animals. The massive head lowered to Helen, nostrils snuffling, drool dripping onto the leaves coating the forest floor.

Stephen fired again, this time into its body. It was a huge target, but he knew with a sick certainty that the bullets were doing nothing to incapacitate the beast and everything to fuel its anger.

A moment later, he saw Ryan run out of the undergrowth and expected to hear the unmistakeable chatter of automatic weapon fire but, to Stephen’s surprise, the black-clad soldier had his rifle slung over his shoulder. He came to a halt only a few metres from the tyrannosaurus, what looked like a short tube held in one hand. With his other hand, the Special Forces captain flipped off a small cap and tugged at a short piece of cord that dangled from the end of the cylinder.

“Look away!” Ryan yelled.

Fire leaped from the tube, burning with an intensity that made Stephen blink rapidly even as he obeyed the order. Orange flame quickly turned red, as smoke billowed from the distress flare gripped firmly in Ryan’s hand. The soldier ran forward, waving his arm, thrusting the fire right into the tyrannosaurus’ face. A sharp, acrid smell filled the air. The huge predator bellowed in fear, snapping its jaws wildly even as it turned away from the intensely bright light.

For good measure, Stephen levelled the Browning again and fired another two shots, adding pain to the terror that the flare was clearly inducing. It was enough, and even as the light from the distress flare started to fade the tyrannosaurus was already stampeding away into the forest, roaring in an ear-shattering combination of fear and anger.

With lights still dancing in his eyes, Stephen turned to Ryan, grinning. “Nice one, soldier boy. Why the hell didn’t you use that earlier?”

Ryan returned the grin and dropped the still-smoking flare. “Abby was pretty sure that waving some green stuff around would be enough for the veggies, and I was saving this trick for a real emergency.” He extended his arm and hauled Helen to her feet, his sharp eyes taking in her various injuries. “What went wrong?”

“An ankylosaur used the rope as a trip wire.”

“And your arm?”

“Something got over-friendly.” Stephen holstered the Browning and looped his good arm around Helen’s waist. She was white-faced and had obviously jarred her injured shoulder badly.

Together, the three of them covered the remaining distance to the anomaly without further incident. With Ryan as rear-guard, Stephen stepped into the glittering light, still half-supporting Helen’s weight. He didn’t even spare a final glance for the beautiful but deadly world he was leaving behind, and the dark, waxy leaves of a rhododendron bush had never before looked so good.

Hands reached out to help them and Stephen found himself in Nick’s arms. He heard Ryan’s calm voice giving orders and for a long moment Stephen simply allowed himself to be held, his head resting on Nick’s shoulder as the throbbing in his right forearm was finally eclipsed by a feeling of relief so strong that it took away fear and dulled pain, leaving him trembling with reaction.

“How very touching,” drawled a familiar voice. “Professor Cutter, Mr Hart, I’m sure that Captain Ryan and his men would prefer you to cut your reunion short so that they can secure the anomaly before something decides to gate-crash the party.”

Nick gave him a last, gentle squeeze and Stephen took a step back. For all Lester’s sharp tone, the man’s eyes held an unmistakeable shadow of relief. The ebb of adrenaline in his body had dulled Stephen’s brain. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since they’d left behind the grounds of Frank Taylor’s Dorset mansion and his watch hadn’t survived the encounter with the dromaeosaur, but Lester had obviously decided to mobilise a full team.

“I do so dislike the expense of helicopters,” Lester commented, seeing his surprise. “But as a method of transport they have their advantages.”

“You know we’re worth it,” grinned Connor, appearing at Lester’s side.

“So you keep telling me, Mr Temple.” Lester’s eyes rested on Helen, who was swaying slightly on her feet. “I take it you won’t be so quick on this occasion to scorn our hospitality?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Have you done anything illegal?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then why should I arrest you?”

“You did last time.”

“And much good it did me.” Lester smiled humourlessly. “Come, Mrs Cutter. The inestimable Ms Brown has a veritable corps of paramedics on hand to tend to the injured. Let’s not disappoint them.”

Stephen noted that some colour had come back into Helen’s face, and she mustered a passable expression of amusement to counter Lester’s disdain, before limping off in the direction of the house.

“One all,” muttered Nick. “Come on, let’s get that arm looked at.”

Leaving Ryan issuing orders to his men, Stephen set off in Lester’s wake, with Nick at his side, holding tightly to the fingers of his uninjured hand. The shadows of evening were drawing in around them, and the anomaly still glittered brightly, shedding a pale, fractured light, but it led to a world as cruel as it was beautiful and, for now, Stephen was more than content to leave the past behind him.

* * * * *

Stephen settled himself into the kitchen chair in the Taylor mansion with a small sigh of relief. Although he would have preferred to be back in Nick’s house, or his own flat, he certainly hadn’t fancied the drive, not that late at night, and Taylor had been adamant that his house was at their disposal.

After having spent the last two hours in Dorchester hospital having the wounds in his arm cleaned, stitched and bandaged, Stephen hadn’t felt in any fit state to decline his hospitality. Karen Taylor had regained consciousness briefly, much to her father’s relief and, from what they’d been told, her injuries were not believed to be life-threatening. A harassed doctor, who clearly hadn’t set much store by any of Claudia’s carefully constructed cover-stories, had informed them in no uncertain terms that Helen would need to be kept in overnight for observation. Helen herself had accepted that with surprising equanimity, and Stephen had last seen her engaged in a remarkably civil discussion with Lester, during which she appeared to have been promising not to run any more prehistoric package tours in return for Lester’s assurance that he would not be taking any steps to freeze her newly-acquired bank account.

“Do you think Frank will want his money back?” Stephen asked, accepting the mug of tea liberally laced with whisky that Nick pushed across the table to him.

“His daughter is alive. That’s all he seems to care about,” Nick said.

“He assures me he won’t be publishing any more papers,” Claudia commented, with a slight smile. “James says he is being most cooperative.”

“And Helen?”

“Asleep, when I left the hospital,” said Lester from the doorway, having done a good job of emulating Helen’s own cat-like approach earlier in the day. “I very much doubt she’ll consent to enjoy the hospitality of the NHS for much longer, though, in spite of her protestations to the contrary.”

“And then what?” Nick asked quietly, slipping one hand on Stephen’s without any show of embarrassment.

“She will no doubt find another way to be the bane of my existence,” Lester sighed. “Claudia, if there’s another cup of tea in that pot I would appreciate it. The sludge they serve in that hospital appears to have cauterised my palate. Something to revive it would be most welcome.”

Nick pulled his battered hip flask out of a pocket and slid it across the table. “Try that, but if you put it in your tea I might be forced to feed you to the next thing with big teeth that comes through an anomaly. You can use the Bell’s for that. Stephen did.”

Claudia handed Lester a glass. He poured a generous measure of Nick’s Scotch, gave it an appreciative sniff, followed by an even more appreciative sip and commented, “Karen Taylor was awake again when I left the hospital. Her father asked me to tender his sincere thanks to the entire team. The hospitality of Byfield Manor is at our disposal for as long as we need it, although Captain Ryan assures me that the anomaly is finally showing signs of starting to fade.”

Lester accepted a mug of tea and a bottle of Bell’s whisky from Claudia that wouldn’t draw a squawk of outrage from Nick when the two were mixed and proceeded to make himself comfortable in a large rocking chair.

“All’s well that ends well,” Claudia said, but it sounded to Stephen more like a question than a statement.

Lester favoured her with a benign smile. “Professor Taylor seems to have lost his urge to impress the scientific world with his discoveries. His daughter’s wanderlust has no doubt been curbed. Helen Cutter now appears to think that the benefits of companionship do not, in fact, outweigh the potential difficulties. So, yes, on this occasion, I do believe that we can consider matters to have been successfully concluded.” Lester’s smile took on a somewhat shark-like edge and he added quietly, “However, before we leave, I have every intention of ensuring that no evidence of their intellectual tourism is able to come back to haunt us. I want this house thoroughly searched before we leave, and all evidence secured. I’m sure between you all that little task can be accomplished without too much difficulty.”

“Can we keep what we find?” grinned Connor.

Lester rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hear that question, Mr Temple.”

Connor’s grin broadened.

Nick’s hand tightened on Stephen’s and gave a slight tug. “You need to get some sleep.”

Stephen allowed himself to be pulled gently to his feet. His head was fuzzy with a mixture of painkillers and alcohol and he knew he couldn’t stay awake much longer. Claudia had already identified rooms for all of them in the huge house and Stephen found himself ushered into a bedroom almost bigger than his entire flat, with an actual four-poster bed, draped with rich gold and red brocade that actually managed to look tasteful rather than ludicrous, much to Stephen’s surprise. A pair of huge floor to ceiling doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the manicured lawns to the rear that finally gave way to the wilder areas of the grounds. In the distance, Stephen could just make out the dim glow of the now-fading anomaly above the dark tangle of bushes and trees.

Nick walked over to the doors and opened them, stepping out onto the balcony and leaning for a moment on the stone balustrade. In spite of the fact that it was now after midnight, the air was warm, although not as warm as the humid heat of the Cretaceous. Stephen turned off the main light in the bedroom, leaving only the soft glow of the wall-lights to illuminate the room. He toed off his trainers and wandered out to join Nick, slipping his good arm around his lover’s waist.

Nick leaned against him, still staring out into the darkness, and Stephen could feel the slight tension in the other man’s body. A moment later, he identified its source. A figure was making its way across the lawn, the concealing veil of darkness not quite sufficient to disguise its passage.

Stephen sighed. “Lester was right, wasn’t he?”

“He normally is,” Nick said. “But if you tell him I said that, it’ll be the end of a beautiful friendship.” Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. He had Ryan’s number keyed into his directory, they all did.

The Special Forces leader answered almost immediately.

“My wife is heading in your direction,” Nick said softly. “I would be extremely grateful if you did not attempt to hinder her departure.” Stephen watched Nick’s lips twitch into a smile, and then he said, “Thank you, Ryan,” and ended the call.

Stephen raised his eyebrows, not quite able to interpret the look on Nick’s face.

“He said Lester had just phoned him and told him to let her through, but he’d been intending to do it anyway.”

Stephen laughed softly and pulled Nick into a hug. “It’s a conspiracy. Connor will be delighted.” He kissed Nick lightly on the lips before admitting, “There was a moment back there when I didn’t think I was going to see you again. I asked Helen to tell you I loved you.”

Nick’s arms tightened protectively around Stephen’s waist. “What did she say?”

“She told me to tell you myself. She’d obviously heard Ryan coming before I did.” He was silent for a long moment and then said, trying to ignore the fact that his voice was shaking slightly. “She was important to me, Cutter, I can’t deny that, but it’s over. I’ve known for more years than I care to remember that there’s only one Cutter who matters to me now.”

Nick smiled, and it was a smile that held more than affection. “She was important to me as well, Stephen, and she still is, but in a different way.”

Nick pulled Stephen’s head down and captured his lips in a deep, warm kiss. Stephen opened his mouth to admit the gently probing tongue. When they finally broke apart, Nick murmured, “I love you too, Stephen,” and then went back to kissing him thoroughly enough to overcome both pain and exhaustion.

Stephen lost himself in the comfort of Nick’s arms and later, after pleasure had been given and pleasure taken, they lay together in the enormous bed, Stephen’s head pillowed on Nick’s chest, his bandaged arm resting on Nick’s stomach, and Nick’s arm looped around Stephen’s shoulders.

A light kiss was pressed into his hair and Stephen heard the amusement in Nick’s voice as his lover said quietly, “Maybe we could fix her up with Lester?”

Stephen chuckled and licked sleepily at one of Nick’s nipples. “Made for each other,” he agreed, before finally slipping away into sleep, secure in the knowledge that a shadow had finally been lifted from their lives.


End file.
